Emilian School Of The Seventeenth Century, The Prayer Of Saint Charles

Emilian School of the seventeenth century

The prayer of Saint Charles

Oil on copper, 21 x 26 cm

With frame, cm 31x 25

The representation of San Carlo Borromeo in meditation in front of the crucifix (and sometimes a skull) is quite recurrent in the seventeenth-century iconography of the great Milanese archbishop, creator, along with Saint Ignatius of Loyola and Saint Philip Neri, the reform of the Church in the years immediately following the Council of Trent. Although at his death in 1584, he was only 46 years old, his reform action had already been so vast and profound that it had left an indelible mark on the Ambrosian church, while the memory of his charitable activities during the great famine of 1569-70 and, above all,  the episode of the plague of 1576-1577 miraculously ceased after the procession in which he had barefoot brought a wooden cross with the relic of the sacred nail, had spread the fame of holiness even before his death.

Proclaimed a saint in 1610 by Pope Paul V, since then his cult has not ceased to spread also thanks to the many artists, major and minor who fixed the iconography, starting from the best known representatives of the early Lombard Baroque, such as Cerano, Procaccini, The Morazzone to Guercino. 

It is precisely to Giovanni Francesco Barbieri known as Guercino (Cento, 2 February 1591 - Bologna, 22 December 1666) that this small copper is linked that, without any doubt thought for private devotion, resumes the composition of one of the first altarpieces executed by the master emiliano. Painted for the church of Santa Maria Addolorata there remained until a few years ago, she was married in the Church of San Biagio a Cento where it is still preserved today.  The commission was received immediately after the fire of the Church of the Servants in 1613 and the painting was completed in 1614.
The figure of the saint shows the excessively marked physical features of the face, starting from the famous aquiline nose, here strongly pronounced, which makes the saint immediately recognizable. Saint Charles is depicted kneeling before a prayer altar, on which a wooden crucifix is visible. Behind the saint two angels dressed in heavy drapes.  The altarpiece shows the debts of the young Guercino towards the luministic suggestions present in the works of Scarsellino from Ferrara and the naturalistic representation of the sentiments typical of Ludovico Carracci’s painting. 

The object is in good condition

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