Mantegna, Andrea (c.1431-1506)
San Sebastiano (St. Sebastian)
c.1457–1459
Oil on poplar, 68 × 30 cm
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
Sebastian was the leader of the bodyguard of the Roman emperor Diocletian and was sentenced to death for his Christian faith. The saint experienced the widest veneration and was invoked as an emergency helper (against “plague arrows”), especially in times of plague. On this occasion – in 1456/57 the plague raged in Padua – the tablet could have been created. For Mantegna, the founder of early Renaissance painting in northern Italy, antiquity was the ever-present model: the nude figure of the martyr, which resembles a stone sculpture, is placed in front of an antique-style architectural backdrop, which appears even more “authentic” due to the signature written in Greek (“the work of Andrea”) on the left edge of the pillar. (KHM)