St. Anastasia Dying
- Object belonging
- One's own
- Category
- Terracotta sculpture
- City
- Rome
- Location
- Museo Nazionale del Palazzo di Venezia
- Specific location
- Room 21
- Inventory
- PV 13308
- Material and technique
- Terracotta
- Author
- Francesco Aprile known as Francesco Lombardo (c. 1654 -1684)
- Dating
- 1678-1684
- Dimensions
- 15.4x40.5x16.8 cm.
- Origin
- Gorga Collection (1948)
- Image copyright
- SSPSAE e per il Polo Museale della città di Roma
Short description
The restoration and renovation of the church of Sant’Anastasia at the foot of the Palatine Hill began in 1677, and on 4 February the following year some relics were found of the young martyr, who was burnt alive during the reign of Diocletian. It was probably the idea of Monsignor Giovanni Battista Febei to erect a statue of the saint, lying down with her head resting on a pile of wood, near the confessional. Francesco Aprile, a young and talented artist who collaborated with Ercole Ferrata, was given the commission, but the project remained unfinished when he died prematurely on 23 December 1684. The saint is lying on a small patch of land and flames rise from the stack of wood that serves as a pillow. A dense sequence of folds runs over the mantle that covers the limbs, while the edges of the clothes, like the sporadic patches of vegetation, are described with the utmost precision, a feature that casts doubt on the attribution to Aprile, and leaves open the possibility that it might be a copy after the artist. Conversely, though, the exact reproduction here of the back of the sculpture, which cannot be seen in situ due to the positioning of the sculpture under the main altar, would seem to rule out this possibility.
Cristiano Giometti
