Saint Sebastian with Saint Roch and Saint Demetrius

Sebastian and Roch were the two figures people in Renaissance Italy prayed to against plague, and here they stand together on an altarpiece Ortolano painted between 1521 and 1524 for the church of Santa Maria in Bondeno, north-west of Ferrara. Sebastian, tied to a tree, is painted down to the veins in his arms. Roch, the pilgrim with his staff, shows the plague sore on his thigh, kept discreetly in shadow. The third figure is a rarity in Italian painting. Demetrius, a soldier saint venerated above all in the Greek East, stands in polished plate armour with a hand over his mouth, and the painter needed a slip of paper at his feet, inscribed with his name. In front lie a crossbow with its winding crank, a quiver of wolf fur and a wicker-covered flask.