Cecilia's musical fame rests on a passing notice in her legend that she praised God, singing to him, as she lay dying a martyr's death.

The connection between her and the art of which she has become the patron saint does not seem to date back much before the 15th century.^[6] She soon became popular, and by the second half of the 16th century substantial festivals and celebrations in her honor (and that of music in general) began to be recorded, the earliest of them in Normandy. It was just over 100 years before the fashion crossed the channel [to England] with the festivities of 1683 which attracted three celebratory Odes, all set to music by Purcell.

Innumerable paintings and stained glass windows depict her at the organ (inevitably one more advanced than any she could have known). She is represented in the The Ecstasy of St. Cecilia by Raphael at Bologna, Rubens in Berlin, the Domenichino in Paris and at San Luigi dei Francesi, and works by Artemisia Gentileschi.

In literature, she is commemorated especially by Chaucer's Seconde Nonnes Tale, and by John Dryden's famous ode, set to music by Handel in