Brewer's: Filomena

Longfellow calls Florence Nightingale St. Filomena, not only because Filomena resembles the Latin word for a nightingale, but also because this saint, in Sabatelli's picture, is represented as hovering over a group of sick and maimed, healed by her intercession. (See Thaumaturgus.)

Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
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