a confidence that put even an apocalyptic disaster of the magnitude of the Black Death into perspective of God's secure and benevolent plan for humankind." The plague votives functioned both to request intercessory aid from plague saints and to provide catharsis for a population that had just witnessed the profound bodily destruction of the plague. Showing plague saints such as Roch and Sebastian invoked the memory of the human suffering experienced by Christ during the Passion. In the art of Roch after 1477, the saint displayed the wounds of his martyrdom without evidence of pain or suffering. Roch actively lifted his clothing to display the plague bubo on his thigh. This display of his plague bubo showed that "he welcomed his disease as a divinely sent opportunity to imitate the sufferings of Christ… [his] patient endurance [of the physical suffering of plague was] a form of martyrdom." Roch's status as a pilgrim who suffered the plague is paramount in his iconography. "The sight of Roch scarred by the plague yet alive and healthy must have been an emotionally-charged image of a promised cure. Here was literal proof that one could survive the plague, a saint who had triumphed over the disease in his own flesh." Saint Roch in literature F. T. Prince published a long monologue from the perspective of Saint Roch's dog entitled 'His Dog and Pilgrim' in his 1983 collection Later On. The breaking of a statue of Saint Roch is a crucial incident in the novel Clochemerle. In Albert Camus’ novel The Plague, worshippers in the cathedral of Oran are seen gathered around the statue of Saint Roch. In Doomsday Book by Connie Willis, a medieval priest who tends to plague victims is named Father Roche. Saint Roch's dog is sometimes conflated with the folk saint Saint Guinefort, the holy greyhound. Saint Roch in other media A 2012 Philippine fantasy teleserye, Aso ni San Roque (literally Saint Roch's Dog), depicts a dog from the statue of San Roque coming to life to serve as a guardian of a protagonist blind girl. See also San Rocco, Roman Catholic church in Piacenza, Italy Notes Citations General references Acta sanctorum, August, iii. Charles Cahier, Les Characteristiques des saints, Paris, 1867 External links Medieval Sourcebook: The Golden Legend, book V: Saint Rocke, William Caxton, translator Patron Saints: Saint Roch "St. Roch, Confessor", Butler's Lives of the Saints 1295 births 1376 deaths