The iconografia of St. Sebastiano Martire
The martyrdom of St. Sebastiano, work of the painter Palazzolese Tanasi Paul,
guarded in the Church of san Bartholomew to Giarratana.
The work of the painter Paolo Tanasi of Palazzolo performed in 1802 to expenses of Bartolo Michael Distefano raffigurante the martyrdom of san Sebastiano and guarded in the Church of san Bartholomew to Giarratana. The work was performed after 3 years by the realization of the "Paul's Conversion" of Marcello Vieri that it is found mail in the opposite aisle. The two works were realized with a lot of probability for the presence to Giarratana of of Mr. native Domenico Lanza of Palazzolo that became a priest in 1803. The painter doesn't represent the traditional iconografia, really because of Palazzolo, in fact you/he/she knows the second martyrdom of the Saint, and you/he/she represents him/it in the terminal phase. Of rhyming, close to the figure of the saint there are to earth the arrows and the quiver, while the body of the Martyr is introduced with the recovered wounds. In the superior part to the center the immaculate Conception camps, the Sicilians' Patrona, to its right the virgin Martyr Lucy, patrona in Syracuse, to the left St. Nicola from Tolentino, protecting of the women partorienti.
Carmelo Ferraro
St. Sebastiano, Considered third among the seven defenders of the Church in the cataloguing of Gregorio Magno, compatrono in Rome after Pietro and Paul, Sebastiano, soldier and martyr of Christ, fascinating figure in the history and in the legend, returns nell’arte with unbelievable frequency. The copiosità of the images is fed by the terror for the plague, against which is invoked what protecting. The fear of the contagious evil, scourge that in ancient it applies with unbelievable periodicity it determines the choice of an intercessor that what lawyer implores the immunity or the cessation of the evil, held by the popular belief a sign of the celestial anger or an imposed punishment to the world for his/her guilts. The cult of protecting Sebastiano from the plague, is underlined in the iconografia, that introduces him of impressive thing vastità to be able him to affirm, also in the limits of the generalization, that the most greater part of the artists, kind in the Renaissance, at least once it exalts the Saint. The diversità of ideal and thoughts informants it obviously produces in the representations the difference of the character and the lines fisionomici attributed to the martyr, besides contrasts are verified in the representation of the scenes of the life in relationship to the diversità of the "passio" and of the legends followed in the evocation. Sebastiano therefore you/he/she is represented young or old, beardless or bearded, delicate or athletic; its dresses are those of a kind rider or of a rough soldier, of a polite page or of an official aristocrat; in the persecution it reveals him as a patient martyr or upset by the pain, abstract or terrible, persuasive or threatening"
Cannatà Pietro,
" Sebastiano ,
santo martire di Roma. IV iconografia "
pag. 790
in "Bibliotheca Sanctorum", vol. IX, Roma 1968"
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