Venetian school, 17th century

Venetian school, 17th century

Saint Nicholas of Tolentino in prayer

Oil on canvas, cm 74 x 56

Frame cm 80 x 64

The back bears the seal of the Venetian Academy of Fine Arts



Saint Nicholas of Tolentino (1245-1305), in the canvas analyzed here, is portrayed with the black dress of the Augustinian friars and the tonsure, kneeling in prayer before a crucifix made up of two pieces of raw wood. Nicola was born in Sant'Angelo, in the Anconetana region, in 1245. At the age of eighteen he became a friar in the Augustinian Order and in 1270 was ordained a priest. He made several healings that earned him the fame of a thaumaturge. He settled in Tolentino, a developing centre at the time, which meant that political discord intensified and became more acute. The presence of Nicola and his role as a skilled preacher played a fundamental role in mediating the ancient conflict between Guelphs and Ghibellines. Beside the preaching he always dedicated himself to the sick and the needy. After thirty years in Tolentino he fell ill and died on 10 September 1305. The Saint is immersed in a lush wooded landscape, the leaves of the trees completely cover the surface of the canvas, opening up at the divine appearance, below which flows a stream of clear water. When Nicola was still educating in the Convent of Sant'Angelo, he went to meditate and pray in the countryside immediately below the castle and the Convent, going especially to the ditch still today called Fontanelle, that flows at the foot of the great forest of Collechiarino. The stories handed down orally over the centuries say that, arrived near the ditch, loved to stop sitting on a boulder now placed in the middle of the water, called Sasso Massaccio. It is said that one day, thirsty, the young Nicola, after lying on the ground to rest not far from the stone, saw miraculously water gushing out right where he had laid his head, and in that point there is now the source of the Fontanelle. In the upper right is represented the appearance of the Child Jesus, who, supported by a soft cloud and surrounded by a golden light, raises his right hand in a blessing gesture. In the left hand it holds a lily branch, an attribute of Nicholas and symbol of purity. The light emanating from the divine apparition illuminates the figure of the saint, forming soft plays of light on the draperies of the robe and reflecting on the surrounding nature. On the rock on which St Nicholas is resting, next to the crucifix, are the large book of the Rules, a skull, symbol of the "vanity" of earthly things, destined to die, and an hourglass, symbol of the passage of time and the caducity of earthly life. The painting under examination is rich in naturalistic details investigated with wisdom both from a compositional and chromatic point of view

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