Crucifixion with Saints (Annibale Carracci)

1583 painting

Crucifixion with Saints (1583) by Annibale Carracci

Crucifixion with Saints or Crucifixion with Mourners and Saints Bernardino of Siena, Francis of Assisi and Petronius is a 1583 oil on canvas, now in the church of Santa Maria della Carità in Bologna. The work was originally sited in the Macchiavelli chapel in San Nicolò di San Felice, Bologna, next to Santa Maria della Carità, which was destroyed by bombing during the Second World War. It was then temporarily moved to the Soprintendenza di Bologna and finally to its current home.

## Dating

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In Felsina Pittrice in 1678, Carlo Cesare Malvasia stated that Carracci produced the work when he was eighteen (defining it as "the first work ever to come from the great Annibale's brush") and that the commission was initially offered to Ludovico Carracci, who decided the offered payment was too little and so passed it onto his young cousin Annibale. However, this account is unreliable, since cleaning in the 1920s revealed a date of 1583 on the canvas, at which point Annibale was twenty-three.[1] That still makes it his earliest surviving work and his first surviving work for a public audience,[1] though it throws doubt on Malvasia's dating, since a church commission is unlikely to have been his first work, instead indicating that Carracci was already a successful artist[2]

Malvasia also states that older and more established artists in Bologna criticised the work for excessive realism (calling its figure of Christ a "naked porter"), the composition's disharmony, the inaccurate and fast brushwork and the lack of decorum seen, for example, in Francis' calloused feet.[1] Modern art historians instead see these features as Annibale (albeit with a youthful uncertainty) attempted to break away from the late-Mannerist style then dominant in Bologna and establish a new artistic language founded in realism.[1]

## Analysis

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Bartolomeo Passarotti, Crucifixion with Saints, 1560-1570, Collezioni Comunali d'Arte di Palazzo d'Accursio, Bologna

With a serene expression and his head tilted to the left,[3] the figure of Christ looks down at a group of saints. Francis of Assisi kneels before the cross in front of the Virgin Mary, whilst Petronius stands on the other side in brocaded episcopal vestments, with an altar boy holding his crosier behind him,[3] blocking the viewer's view of John the Evangelist behind them.[1]

## Gallery

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* Print of the painting by Orazio Samacchini (1566-1568), in Basilica di Santa Maria dei Servi in Bologna

* Ercole Procaccini, Madonna in glory with the patron saints of Bologna, 1570-1580, Bologna, Chiesa di San Giovanni in Monte

* Pellegrino Tibaldi, Annunciation of the Birth of John the Baptist, 1551-1553, Bologna, Basilica di San Giacomo Maggiore

* Bartolomeo Passarotti, Madonna in glory with saints, circa 1570, Bologna, Basilica di San Petronio

* Prospero Fontana, Crucifixion, circa 1580, Museo del Convento di San Giuseppe, Bologna

* Bartolomeo Cesi, Crucifixion with saints, 1584, Basilica di San Martino, Bologna

## References

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1. ^ a b c d e Daniele Benati, in Daniele Benati and Eugenio Riccomini (edited by),  Annibale Carracci, Catalog of the exhibition Bologna and Rome 2006-2007 , Milan, 2006, p. 136.
2. ^ D. Benati, Annibale Carracci, Catalogo, cit., p. 136.
3. ^ a b Anton W. A. Boschloo, Annibale Carracci in Bologna: visible reality in art after the Council of Trent, L'Aia, 1974, pp. 1-11.

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Annibale Carracci

Paintings|

* List of paintings
* The Laughing Youth (1580s)
* The Beaneater (1580–1590)
* Butcher's Shop (1583)
* Crucifixion with Saints (1583)
* Corpse of Christ (1583–1585)
* An Allegory of Truth and Time (1584–1585)
* Baptism of Christ (1585)
* Pietà with Saints Clare, Francis and Mary Magdalene (1585)
* The Mystic Marriage of St Catherine (c. 1585)
* The Vision of Saint Eustace (1585–1586)
* Two Children Teasing a Cat (1587–1588)
* Madonna and Child with Saints (1588)
* Venus with a Satyr and Two Cupids (1588–1590)
* Lamentation (1587–1590)
* Self-Portrait in Profile (1590s)
* Assumption of the Virgin (Madrid; 1590)
* The Virgin Appears to Saint Luke and Saint Catherine (1592)
* Self-Portrait (1593)
* Madonna and Child with Saints (1593)
* Resurrection (1593)
* Madonna and Child in Glory over the City of Bologna (c. 1593)
* Christ and the Samaritan Woman (1593–1594)
* Saint Roch Giving Alms (1587–1595)
* Fishing (before 1595)
* Hunting (before 1595)
* River Landscape (c. 1590)
* Christ and the Canaanite Woman (1594–1595)
* Entombment of Christ (c. 1595)
* Venus, Adonis and Cupid (c. 1595)
* Camerino Farnese
* The Choice of Hercules (1596)
* Christ in Glory with Saints and Odoardo Farnese (c. 1597–1598)
* The Death of Saint Francis (1597–1598)
* Saint Margaret of Antioch (1599)
* Christ Appearing to Saint Anthony Abbot (1598–1600)
* Christ Crowned with Thorns (1598–1600)
* Christ Crowned with Thorns (Bologna) (c. 1598–1600)
* The Madonna and Sleeping Child with the Infant St John the Baptist (c. 1599–1600)
* Pietà (c. 1600)
* The Three Marys at the Tomb (c. 1600)
* Rinaldo and Armida (c. 1601)
* Assumption of the Virgin (Rome; 1600–1601)
* Saint Gregory at Prayer (c. 1600–1602)
* Domine quo vadis? (c. 1602)
* Portable Altarpiece with Pietà and Saints (1603)
* Pietà with Two Angels (c. 1603)
* Sleeping Venus (c. 1603)
* Self-Portrait on an Easel (1603–1604)
* The Martyrdom of St Stephen (c. 1603–1604)
* Portrait of Monsignor Giovanni Battista Agucchi (1604) (disputed)
* Landscape with the Flight into Egypt (c. 1604)
* The Dead Christ Mourned (c. 1604)
* Rest on the Flight into Egypt (c. 1604)
* Danaë (1600–1605)
* Saint Didacus of Alcalá Presenting Juan de Herrera's Son to Christ (c. 1606)
* Pietà with Saint Francis and Saint Mary Magdalene (1602–1607)
* The Loves of the Gods (1608)
* The Birth of the Virgin (1605–1609)

Related|

* Agostino Carracci (brother)
* Ludovico Carracci (cousin)
* The Carracci
* Accademia degli Incamminati
* Palazzo Sampieri frescoes
* Palazzo Magnani

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