Giannicola di Paolo

Perugia, 1460 circa - 1544

Defined by Todini as "the greatest artist of the early sixteenth-century in Perugia", Giannicola was a pupil and collaborator of Perugino. His painting, initially characterized by a strong adherence to the style of Perugino, gradually added to his master's language, initially with influences from Pinturicchio, Raphael, and Signorelli, and later, in an increasingly evident stylistic shift, clear references to the Tuscan figurative culture of the time, with clear references to the Sienese (Sodoma, Girolamo del Pacchia, and Peruzzi) and Florentine (Albertinelli, Fra Bartolomeo, and Andrea del Sarto) circles.

Saint Sebastian martyred at the column

Oil on panel, 23 x 12 cm

PROVENANCE

Perugia, Church of Santa Maria degli Angeli (?)

The small panel depicts Saint Sebastian tied to the column and pierced by arrows during his first martyrdom. The saint, depicted as a very energetic and athletic young man, casts a thoughtful gaze downward, tilting his head slightly to the right. His head, with long brown hair, slightly highlighted by white on the left, falling thickly and wavy in two bands to his shoulders, is crowned by a gold-bordered halo, almost glass-like in transparency. Behind and above the halo, the upper part of a polished dark blue marble column can be glimpsed, reflecting a white light coming from the front in its centre. Saint Sebastian's body, modelled with quick, thin brushstrokes, is bathed in an intense light coming from the left that, along with the shadow on the right side, highlights the saint's muscles, in a clear chiaroscuro that becomes increasingly less subtle as it moves toward the left. This clear transition from light to shadow is also quite strong in the saint's right arm, especially where the limb bends behind the hip. On the opposite side, on Sebastian's ribs, hip, thighs, and especially on his elbow, an orange light, like a candle, illuminates the darkness of his body. A flash of light, made of thin white brushstrokes, executed in the same manner as the hair, reverberates lightly on the right elbow and even more so on the same side of the belly, around the navel, which is rendered with a strong three-dimensionality. Below the right side of the ribcage lies an arrow, decorated with vertical white and red stripes and an almost transparent white fletching. Another broken arrow pierces the saint's thigh on the same side, letting two thin streams of blood slide across the skin, similar to the arrow that pierced the body below the ribcage.

The culture drawn from Vannucci and the reminiscences of Signorelli, as already mentioned, do not complete the influences visible in our work. The Sienese environment of the first quarter of the 16th century, and in particular the language of Sodoma, appear to be undeniable reference points. Indeed, comparing the Saint Sebastian with Christ at the Column, frescoed by Bazzi around 1505-1508 in Monte Oliveto Maggiore, several common elements emerge. It is immediately apparent that the Vercelli artist's fresco may have been a figurative source for the panel under examination here. The accentuated light counterpoint, made of a chiaroscuro that emphasizes the muscles and tensions of the body, the way the head is bowed and the gaze turned sideways (even if in the opposite direction), the rendering of the twisting of the neck and the bending of the arms behind the hips, the hair that falls on the shoulders, the three-quarter-length representation, the hatching with short lines to convey the transparency of the halo, the way the light falls vertically at the centre of the column, highlighting its shiny and smooth appearance, and even the position and movement of the body, are all points of contact between Sodoma's fresco and our work.

To help us narrow down the possible date of execution and probable provenance, there is a document made public by Mancini in 1998. This deed, dated March 30, 1525, refers to the commission from Giannicola di Paolo of a panel painting for the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Perugia. In the document, the Perugian master, for a fee of 50 florins, promises the clients, executors of the will of the deceased master Franceschetto di Giovanni di Angelo, blacksmith of Porta San Pietro, to complete and deliver, by March 20, 1526, a panel depicting Christ crucified adored by Saint Roch, accompanied by a predella with a Story of Saint George in the centre and the images of Saint Peter Martyr and Saint Sebastian on the sides. Our panel depicting Saint Sebastian martyred at the column could very plausibly have come from the step of this work, now considered completely lost. This would also confirm a possible placement of our panel on the dado at the base of a pillar, a solution recognizable in other contemporary Perugian works, which the document also somehow lets us imagine: assuming that the Story of Saint George refers to several episodes of the same, one can reasonably think that the two holy martyrs were found at the ends of a sufficiently long predella. As for the precise dating of our Saint Sebastian, the commission to Giannicola of the altarpiece for Santa Maria degli Angeli at the end of March 1525 only allows us to indicate this date as a possible post quem for its execution. Given the many delays of the Perugian painter in the decoration of the chapel of San Giovanni al Cambio, it is in fact unlikely that he respected the agreements signed in the document and it is therefore plausible that Giannicola postponed the delivery date of the altarpiece to the years in which he was already busy with the frescoes on the side walls (1526-1529). This dating hypothesis would also justify the tangible stylistic adherence of the panel to the Stories of the Baptist in the Collegio del Cambio.

A full fact sheet is available on request.