SS. Roch and Sigismund, and Brethren of Compagnia di S. Sebastiano
Photograph by Alinari, Rome
These older representations of Sebastian by Benozzo Gozzoli, and others by Albrecht Dürer and the early German school, showing Sebastian as an elderly bearded man, offer but little attractiveness. By far the most beautiful pictures are those of Perugino, Sodoma, and Francia, who use his nude and youthful figure, as the Greeks used Apollo, as a model for the exhibition of elegance of form and accuracy of anatomical design. As one of the few nude forms permitted to Christian art, it is readily understood why Sebastian figures in such a multitude of pictures. The finest example of this type is the peerless masterpiece of Sodoma (1477-1549), now in the Uffizi Gallery at Florence, one of the most beautiful creations of Renaissance art. It was formerly a banner, painted in a.d. 1528 for the Sienese Compagnia di San Sebastiano in Camollia, and was carried in procession when Siena was afflicted with pestilence. It was kept in the church of the Confraternity at Siena, until it was removed to Florence in a.d. 1786. The undraped body of the saint is modelled on the lines of the youthful Apollo. He is bound to a tree in the foreground of a wild Italian landscape. His neck, side, and one thigh are transfixed with arrows. The upturned face wears an expression of ecstasy, in spite of suffering, as an angel descends to place the crown of martyrdom on his brow. Symonds has said of this picture:
‘Gifted with an exquisite feeling for the beauty of the human body, Sodoma excelled himself when he was contented with a single figure. His St. Sebastian, notwithstanding its wan and faded colouring, is still the very best that has been painted. Suffering, refined and spiritual, without contortion or spasm, could not be presented with more pathos in a form of more surpassing loveliness. This is a truly demonic picture in the fascination it exercises and the memory it leaves upon the mind. Part of its unanalysable charm may be due to the bold thought of combining the beauty of a Greek Hylas with the Christian sentiment of martyrdom. Only the Renaissance could have produced a hybrid so successful, because so deeply felt.’
On the reverse of the banner is the [Madonna with the Child] in her arms, enthroned on clouds, above a kneeling group of SS. Roch and Sigismund and members of the Compagnia di S. Sebastiano, wearing their characteristic garments. The work is much inferior to that of the face of the banner, and is said to be in part the work of Beccafumi (1486-1551).
Another superb, but little known picture, by Perugino (a.d. 1446-1524) in the Musée at Grenoble, shows the same type of nude figure of Sebastian bound to a tree. Face and figure alike are the very embodiment of youthfulness and grace, verging almost on effeminacy. In this picture S. Apolline stands beside Sebastian.
Exceptionally, and more particularly in the older pictures, the youthful Sebastian is depicted clothed in the costume of the period, with or without an arrow in his hand. In the Brera at Milan is a folding altar-piece of five panels by Nicolò da Foligno (a.d. 1430-92), in which he is represented as a youth in kilted tunic and hose. He is similarly clad in another picture in the Vatican, ‘The Coronation of the Virgin and Saints,’ also by Nicolò da Foligno, and in a few others as well.
Sebastian is very frequently represented in plague pictures along with other saints: his most frequent companion by far is St. Roch. In the sacristy of S. Maria della Salute at Venice, itself a plague church, is [Titian’s well-known picture] commemorating the great plague of a.d. 1512, in which St. Sebastian, St. Roch, and the physician-saints Cosmo and Damian stand before the throne of St. Mark, across whose majestic figure the shadow of a cloud has fallen. These groups of saints are not infrequently represented mediating with the Madonna.
Travelling through Italy from town to town one becomes aware that the land of pestilence has been roughly partitioned into separate dominions under the tutelage of varying presiding saints. In Milan it is Carlo Borromeo: in Venice, S. Rocco: in Rome, the Madonna: in Central Italy, in Siena, and in Florence, S. Sebastiano. In Florence he was the patron saint of the Compagnia della Misericordia, the institution that has for seven centuries been so closely interwoven with the daily life of the city, and has left no small mark on the products of Florentine art.
Christian sculpture has also seized the opportunity of the nude figure for a model. Well-known statues are those by Matteo Civitali (c. 1470) at Lucca, and by Puget (1622-94) in the church of Carignano at Genoa. A colossal recumbent figure of the saint by Bernini (1598-1680) lies beneath the high altar of the church of S. Sebastian on the Via Appia at Rome.