Saints Fabian and Sebastian

Plague returned to Italian cities again and again in the 15th century, and this panel was made for people who prayed against it. Pope Fabian, in his tiara, and Sebastian, shot through with arrows, were both invoked as protectors from the disease, and they share a feast day, 20 January. The two tiny kneeling figures in black hoods at the bottom probably belonged to the Sienese brotherhood that paid for it, and they hold the kind of scourge some confraternities used for penance. The panel may once have been painted on both sides and carried in processions. Later hands changed it. A restorer gave Sebastian a new arm and heavier limbs and painted out some of his arrows. Cleaning at the National Gallery removed those additions, and in 1978 the Gallery's technical bulletin published what the X-rays had shown.