Saint Peter of Alcantara before the Virgin Mary and Saint John (1669)

LAZZARO BALDI
(Pistoia, 1623 - Roma, 1703)

Saint Peter of Alcantara before the Blessed Virgin and Saint John (1669)

Oil on canvas.
Refinished
162 x 97 cm.

On verso, traced with a brush on the canvas: n°48
Provenance: Galerie Jacques Leegenhoek, Paris.

Bibliography: Unpublished


Lazzaro Baldi, originally from Pistoia, came to Rome to work in Pierre de Cortone's workshop, where he became, along with Ciro Ferri, one of his main collaborators, before developing a more personal and distinctive style.
This privileged position enabled him to win numerous commissions, which are still in place today: Sant'Anastasia, the Oratorio dei Pescivendoli, Santa Maria del Pianto, Santa Maria in Vallicella, Santi Martina e Luca, Santa Pudenziana, San Silvestro al Quirinale, Santa Croce dei Lucchesi, San Marcello al Corso, and the Palazzo Spada, to name but a few.

Pope Clement IX Rospigliosi, also from Pistoia, entrusted his compatriot with most of the commissions linked to the countless canonization ceremonies multiplied by the Counter-Reformation. This specific activity was to be shared with Guglielmo Cortese (Jacques Courtois, known as le Bourguignon), Ludovico Giminiani, Fabrizio Chiari, Niccolo Berrettoni (nephew of Pierre de Cortone), Luigi Garzi, Carlo Maratta and Giacomo Zoboli.

Joined the Academy of Saint Luke in 1652, becoming Prince in 1679.

Notes by Vittorio Casale
The painting, in a good state of preservation although slightly trimmed on the sides, depicts the Virgin and Child and Saint John the Evangelist appearing to Saint Peter of Alcantara.
The saint was canonized by Clement IX in 1669, at the same time as St. Mary Magdalene of Pazzi, and for the occasion, as was customary, artists were recruited to execute the paintings and standards required for the ceremony: Fabrizio Chiari, Guillaume Courtois dit le Bourguignon and Lazzaro Baldi.
The work unquestionably belonging to the latter, and bearing the unmistakable hallmark of his style, belongs to the series Baldi created precisely for the 1669 event.
Already the previous year, for the beatification of Saint Rose of Lima, the artist had inaugurated the production of paintings for beatifications and canonizations that he pursued unfailingly throughout his life, becoming the century's most sought-after painter for such occasions.
He depicted Saint Peter of Alcantara in the various media required for the canonization: four copies of the large double-sided standard, the most important liturgical ingredient for the ceremony in Saint Peter's and the successive feasts, and the various stories of the saint for the ornamentation of the basilica, of which a few preparatory drawings survive; probably also other paintings less closely linked to the ceremony, and in a genre requiring considerable involvement, the presents intended for the Holy Father and the most important prelates.
In this way, the official image of the saint, with its specific iconographic attributes, was fixed, destined to become canonical and to serve as a model for other images and altarpieces, benefiting from the official authorization of the cult that encouraged the erection of altars and chapels; engravings were also produced to widen distribution.
The saint's iconographic repertoire consists of the rough canvas tunic, the cross made of tree trunks, and the way of standing, without lying down, but almost kneeling on a very short plank bed.
The iconography was prescribed by the commissioners and based on the biographies that flourished especially on the occasion of the canonization; Baldi's paintings for Saint Peter of Alcantara are no exception, as the documents prove.
The heavy garment is evoked by an exceptional hagiographer who had him as her spiritual director: Saint Teresa of Avila: “He wore a habit of coarse grey cloth”.
The cross of unsmoothed tree trunks is always present among the saint's attributes, and was even the object of the ecstasy of which we'll say: “He embraced his companion poverty so tightly that there was never more between them than an old habit and the trunk of the Holy Cross.
There was a precise reason for the tiring position he adopted on his pallet: the dimensions of the cell did not allow for a normal bed. “He would not have been able to lie down (...), for as everyone knows, his cell did not exceed a length of four and a half feet (about 135 cm)”, according to Saint Theresa's account. A drawing in Stockholm, with a “penitent monk” to be identified with Saint Peter of Alcantara (fig. 1), combines the three iconographic features: the cross of trunks, the bure robe, the sloping bed on which the saint curls up for lack of space.
The images of the saint already produced by Baldi can be grouped around two themes:
Ravi in ecstasy before the cross and before the apparition of the Virgin and Child with Saint John the Evangelist. Also for its iconicity, ecstasy before the cross was certainly the subject of the standards; as usual identical and as always now lost.
In addition to the preparatory drawings, there remains a particularly careful version (Rome, Lemme Collection), perhaps one of the important presents, or more likely a modello, and a large canvas, perhaps the corresponding altar painting, hitherto unknown, in the Roman church of Santo Stefano del Cacco(fig. 2).
Here's the event, classified as the fortieth of the fifty ecstasies attributed to the saint, through the description of a contemporary source: “In the monastery of Pedroso, contemplating the Servant of God in the garden, in that cross planted by him on the summit of the mount(...) he became so inflamed that his body, lifted into the air, was carried by the power of the spirit before that same Cross where, having reached it, he remained with his hands relaxed and in the act of adoration, immersed in the sweetness of heaven so that from the outside he gave to be seen what he was enjoying inwardly : His eyes, fixed on the Cross, began to cast a few rays of radiance that would strike the Cross.
The other ecstasy was hitherto represented only by four drawings (Gabinetto Nazionale delle Stampe di Roma, F.C.124486; F.C.124490; F.C. 124513, F.C.125482) and by a meticulous engraving by Barend de Bailliu; Gabinetto delle Stampe di Roma, F.C. 40793) (fig.3).
Our painting is therefore the only known pictorial record of this vision of Saint Peter of Alcantara...
Full notes by Professor Vittorio Casale on request.