Giacinto Brandi

(Roma, 1621 - Roma, 1691)

Oil on canvas, 139x100 cm. The artwork is a replica of the composition performed by Brandi for the Cardinal Flavio Chigi, close to the canonization of the Saint, celebrated in the Vatican Basilica on November 1, 1658. The work is currently dispersed and unknown to the art historians. The numerous copies known testify the involvement of the workshop of Brandi in this phenomenon of serial production, aimed at spreading the devotion to the saint recently canonized. We recall the replicas of Cori (Museum of the City and of the Territory, formerly the Monastery of SantOliva), of Milan (Pinacoteca di Brera, in storage at the church of S.Bernardo di Casnate), Budapest (Museum of Fine Arts), London ( Sotheby's, 24 February 1971), Rome (Babuino, 21 June 2011). The version presented here is characterized by a remarkable pictorial rendering next to the Cori specimen, considered autograph by Cannata (1971) and by Pampalone (1996, 2009) while returned to the workshop by Pedrocchi (2006) and Serafinelli (2015).