Giovanni Girolamo Savoldo (Italian, active 1506–1548)
The Death of St. Peter Martyr
INV-1581
Giovanni Girolamo Savoldo (Italian, active 1506–1548)1530–35
The Death of St. Peter Martyr
Giovanni Girolamo Savoldo (Italian, active 1506–1548) →sixteenth century16th Centuryoil on canvaspaint
Date
1530–35
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
115.3 × 141 cm (45 5/16 × 55 1/2 in.); Framed: 144.8 × 170.2 × 16.9 cm (57 × 67 × 6 5/8 in.)
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Location
Chicago, IL
Credit
Lacy Armour Endowment
Here, Giovanni Girolamo Savoldo depicted the final moments in the life of Saint Peter Martyr, a 13th-century Dominican friar who was murdered by Cathar heretics whom he wished to reconvert to Catholicism. By choosing a three-quarter-length format, Savoldo focused attention on the contrasting emotional states of the serenely resigned saint and his elegantly brutish assailant.
Savoldo lived in Venice but had ties to the city of Brescia in nearby Lombardy. He created a darkly poetic style by investing the Lombard artistic tradition of literal realism with the rich textural and atmospheric effects of Titian and other Venetian painters.
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