St Sebastian

Today is the feast, along with St Fabian, of St Sebastian.  

The story of the shooting by a firing squad of Diocletian’s archers of Sebastian was a fruitful subject for painters in the Italian Renaissance anxious to display their mastery of painting the male nude.

Earlier examples are less common, and so it was interesting to see on the New Liturgical Movement an article by Gregory Di Pippo about a Florentine altarpiece showing St Sebastian which was commissioned in 1374 and which is more in the International Gothic style - or perhaps I should write as it evolves towards what became the visual style of the early Renaissance in what is usually seen as its home city.

The well illustrated article can be seen at A 14th Century Altarpiece of St Sebastian

The story of the saint, his cult, relics and significant place in art history, and including a link to depictions by many artists, are all surveyed in considerable detail by Wikipedia at Saint Sebastian

As the article points out he was a ‘plague saint’, along with St Roch, and thus popular in the wake of the Black Death. Whilst no doubt invoked in England as in other European countries on such a basis he is rare as a patronal saint for churches here. The only ancient example I can call to mind is the parish church at Great Gonerby, immediately to the north of Grantham, in Lincolnshire.

St Sebastian Pray for us