St. Sebastian

Palma il Vecchio (Jacopo Negretti)

Download hi-res image TITLE St. Sebastian
AUTHOR Palma il Vecchio (Jacopo Negretti)
DATE 1520 - 2
OBJECT TYPE AND MATERIAL Oil on panel
DIMENSIONS cm 143 x 61
INVENTORY 85
ROOM XVIII
Work on display
Donation

This panel, together with St. Roch and St. Helen and St. Constantine comprised the lower register of a polyptych, testifying to the genre’s survival well into the 16th century when time sacred conversations in a single space become the norm
The presence in the central panel of the Cross, together with the Emperor Constantine and his mother Helen who discovered the True Cross in Jerusalem, reveal that the polyptych was painted for the church of Santa Croce in Gerosa, near Bergamo.

Religious labels

“Whenever I see Saint Sebastian skewered by arrows, I recall he never died of his wounds in any case. Saint Ambrose tells us Sebastian ran afoul of the Roman emperor Diocletian who had the young man bound to a tree and shot with arrows. But arrows didn’t kill Sebastian; he was rescued by Saint Irene, whereupon, incorrigible, he returned to the court to warn the Emperor of his sins. Diocletian was not amused and had the young man clubbed to death. Which is how Sebastian actually died. So, go figure.”
Lawrence Weschler