(Barbara Longhi, St. Catherine of Alexandria; this is also usually thought to be a self-portrait)
The earliest written account of her life is from some 600 years after her martrydom, although her veneration seems to have been longstanding by then, so, as is common with oral hagiography, which tends to simplify tales to their basic structure and assimilate them to other tales with similar structures, her story is likely a stylized composite of many virgin martyrs. Caesar Baronius thought that she might be the same as Dorothea of Alexandria, since a late writer claims that her original name was Dorothea, but this is speculation on limited evidence, so we don't really know. But her tale is perfect for a patron saint of philosophy. If you try to break truth on the wheel, truth breaks the wheel.
The torture of the wheel, incidentally, is a quite nasty way to die. You are stretched out over a wagon wheel and beaten to death with hammers. Why a wheel? If you were on a flat surface, the flat surface would support your bones; they break much more easily over gaps.
