Saint Roch

Ribera dated this canvas 1631, in the years when plague was tearing through northern Italy: Milan, Venice and the towns between them lost enormous numbers of people between 1629 and 1631. Roch was the saint you turned to against exactly that. He had nursed plague victims, caught the disease, and withdrawn to the woods, where a dog brought him bread every day. Both details are here. The dog looks up at him from the left, and the pilgrim's staff, the hat and the sore on his bared thigh identify the rest of the story. His right foot and left hand rest on stone, a quiet play on his name, which sounds like the Spanish word for rock. Ribera made him more than two metres tall and set the viewpoint low, so the figure rises above you. The picture is recorded at the monastery of El Escorial from 1667.