St. Sebastian (Mantegna)

St. Sebastian is the subject of three paintings by the Italian Early Renaissance master Andrea Mantegna. The Paduan artist lived in a period of frequent plagues; Sebastian was considered protector against the plague as having been shot through by arrows, and it was thought that plague spread abroad through the air.

In his long stay in Mantua, furthermore, Mantegna resided near the San Sebastiano church dedicated to St. Sebastian.

It has been suggested that the picture was made after Mantegna had recovered from the plague in Padua (1456–1457). Probably commissioned by the city's podestà to celebrate the end of the pestilence, it was finished before the artist left the city for Mantua.

According to Battisti, the theme refers to the Book of Revelation. A rider is present in the clouds at the upper left corner. As specified in John's work, the cloud is white and the rider has a scythe, which he is using to cut the cloud. The rider has been interpreted as Saturn, the Roman-Greek god: in ancient times Saturn was identified with the Time that passed by and all left destroyed behind him.

Instead of the classical figure of Sebastian tied to a pole in the Rome's Campo Marzio ("Martial Field"), the painter portrayed the saint against an arch, whether a triumphal arch or the gate of the city. In 1457 the painter had been trialled for "artistical inadequacy" for having put only eight apostles in his fresco of the Assumption. As a reply, he therefore applied Alberti's Classicism principles in the following pictures, including this small St. Sebastian, though deformed by the nostalgic perspective of his own.

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