The ''Martyrdom of Four Saints'' is an
oil on canvas
Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on wood panel or canvas for several centuries, spreading from Europe to the rest of ...
painting by the Italian Renaissance artist
Correggio
Antonio Allegri da Correggio (August 1489 – 5 March 1534), usually known as just Correggio (, also , , ), was the foremost painter of the Parma school of the High Italian Renaissance, who was responsible for some of the most vigorous and sens ...
, dating from around 1524 and housed in the
Galleria Nazionale of
Parma
Parma (; egl, Pärma, ) is a city in the northern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna known for its architecture, Giuseppe Verdi, music, art, prosciutto (ham), Parmigiano-Reggiano, cheese and surrounding countryside. With a population of 198,292 ...
,
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...
.
History
The work is one of the canvasses commissioned by Parmesan noble Placido Del Bono for a chapel in the church of
San Giovanni Evangelista in Parma. They are mentioned (although wrongly assigned to the
city's cathedral) by late Renaissance art biographer
Giorgio Vasari
Giorgio Vasari (, also , ; 30 July 1511 – 27 June 1574) was an Italian Renaissance Master, who worked as a painter, architect, engineer, writer, and historian, who is best known for his work ''The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculpt ...
in the first edition of his ''Lives'' (1550).
The subject of the painting, rather rare in western religious art, is the martyrdom of
Placidus and his sister Flavia (who had allegedly lived in the 4th century) and, behind them, that of two earlier Roman siblings, Eutychius and Victorinus, who appear to have been already beheaded. An angel flies above them and holds the palm of martyrdom.
Sources
*
External links
Page at Correggio Art Home website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Martyrdom Of Four Saints (Correggio)
Religious paintings by Correggio
1524 paintings
Collections of the Galleria nazionale di Parma
Paintings about death
Christian art about death
Angels in art