Saint Sebastian Thrown into the Cloaca Maxima

1612

Medium

Oil on canvas

Dimensions

163.5 × 232.4 cm

Status

In Museum Collection

Collect24 Art ID

C24-136176

Saint Sebastian is more conventionally depicted bound to a tree or pillar and pierced by arrows, or having his wounds tended to by Irene. Having recovered from the attempted execution by arrows, Roman Emperor Diocletian ordered that he be beaten to death and disposed of in the sewer. The denial of burial demonstrated the utmost contempt for fundamental Christian rites. Ludovico Carracci here chose to represent the moment when Roman soldiers dumped the saint’s limp body into the ancient sewage system, the *Cloaca Maxima*, thereby reducing a heroic martyr to a worthless corpse. In 1612 Cardinal Maffeo Barberini commissioned this painting for a subterranean family chapel in the Church of Sant’Andrea della Valle in Rome. The church stood on the site where Saint Sebastian's body was recovered from a drain, the *Euripus Agrippae*. In a letter to his brother, Cardinal Barberini relayed his concerns that Carracci’s blunt naturalistic portrayal of the saint’s corpse was improper for its intended setting fearing that it would “not inspire much devotion”. Nevertheless, he appreciated the painting as a “good representation of brute force”, and opted not to display it in the chapel, but t…