Their story
Adapted in modern English from Baring-Gould (1897) · original text below · little is known
Fusca was a fifteen-year-old girl of Ravenna who, with her nurse Maura, was taught the faith and baptized. Her pagan parents tried persuasion and threats to turn her back; once her father rushed to strike her, but her mother held him back.
The prefect Quintianus heard of her conversion and had her and Maura brought before him. He had Fusca scourged and run through with a spear. She fell into Maura's arms, and the old nurse begged to die with her; she was killed too. Their relics are at Torcelli, and in art they hold a spear.
Early life
Selected sentences from the original account, unaltered.
Thin entry · the 1897 book gives only 165 words. We have not filled the gap with invented detail.
THE blessed Fusca was a young girl of Ravenna, aged fifteen, who, with her nurse Maura, had been instructed in the faith of Christ, and had been baptized by S. Hermolaus. Her parents, who were heathens, were exceedingly annoyed, and endeavoured by persuasion and threats to turn their daughter from her confidence in God; and on one occasion her father was so far exasperated as to rush upon her to strike her, but the mother interposed and restrained him. The maiden fell into the arms of Maura, and the old woman, clasping her bleeding mistress, implored the man to despatch her also; this request was readily complied with, and the nurse and her young charge died together.