Saint James Defeating the Moors, Antonio Tempesta (Florence 1555 – Rome 1630) Circle

Antonio Tempesta (Florence 1555 – Rome 1630) Circle

St. James defeating the Moors in battle

Oil on canvas (112 x 102 cm. – Framed 125 x 114 cm.)

Full details (LINK)

A valiant knight with his sword drawn, proud in his sumptuous armor outlined with golden ornaments, intent on controlling a majestic white horse is placed at the center of the painting: it is a suggestive image of Saint James in battle, defeating the fleeing Moors.

This subject celebrates the most tumultuous aspect of the character of St. James, which earned him and his brother John the nickname of Boanerges, that is, “Sons of Thunder”, in the Gospel of Mark (3, 17).

According to tradition, around the middle of the 9th century, in the midst of the fighting for the Reconquista of the Spanish lands occupied by the Moors, while enemy armies clashed in the town of Clavijo, Saint James appeared to defend the Christian troops frightened by the animosity of their adversaries, and thus influenced the fate of the war.

This is a little-known iconography of the Saint, which invests him with the status of an impetuous and unstoppable knight against the infidels, so much so as to earn him the nickname Matamoros, meaning Death Killer, in the Spanish popular imagination.

It was therefore a recurring theme in Hispanic iconography, but it also spread to Italian art, as an allegory of the Victory of Faith.

Although it is a religious subject, it cannot be ruled out that it was intended for private devotion, rather than for a place of worship: the painting in fact has a purely "profane" rather than devotional character.

This is a work – of which the pendant is available ( link ) – to be carried out in the workshop of Antonio Tempesta (Florence 1555 – Rome 1630), a leading artist and of fundamental importance for the seventeenth-century development of the 'battle' pictorial genre.

His style, which can be placed in the late Renaissance or early Baroque period, is characterized by elements such as the dynamism of the composition, the dramatic use of light and shadow (chiaroscuro), and the expressiveness of the figures.

He shaped his art in the culture of late sixteenth-century mannerism, acquired from his first training in Florence in the workshop of the Flemish Giovanni Stradano, with whom he collaborated in the decorative undertaking of Palazzo Vecchio.

Active mainly in Rome from 1572, he worked for Pope Gregory XIII on the decorations in the Vatican Loggias, and for many of the most noble and influential families, such as the Farnese, Borghese, Giustiniani and Rospigliosi-Pallavicini, especially in demand as the author of historical and biblical battle scenes.

In fact, starting from 1613 he created, for the Grand Duke Cosimo II, a series of engravings of the "biblical battles" inspired by Tasso's "Jerusalem liberated", subjects which allowed him to enjoy great success in the Medici house and in the Florentine Court, and which served him as a source of inspiration for his subsequent pictorial production.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

The work is completed by a pleasant gilded wooden frame and is sold accompanied by a certificate of authenticity and descriptive iconographic card.

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