Bartholomew
Saint Bartholomew is the patron of tanners, leatherworkers, bookbinders, and butchers because of the gruesome manner of his martyrdom: tradition holds that in Armenia he was flayed alive, his skin stripped from his body. Every trade that works with skin and hide — the tanner who cures it, the leatherworker and bookbinder who shape it, the butcher whose knife divides flesh — took as its patron the apostle whose own skin was taken from him; Michelangelo painted him in the Sistine Chapel holding his flayed hide. For the same reason he is invoked against skin diseases and nervous disorders. He is honored as a patron of Armenia, the land where he preached and died.
Saint Bartholomew, often identified with Nathanael in the Gospel of John, was one of the twelve apostles. When Philip told him about Jesus of Nazareth, Bartholomew famously asked, “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” He is believed to have preached in India and Armenia, where he was martyred by being flayed alive.
