The Dispute of Saint Catherine

Catherine of Alexandria, in the legend, was a learned young princess who confronted the emperor Maxentius over his pagan sacrifices. He summoned 50 philosophers to argue her out of her faith, and she argued so well that they were converted instead, and the emperor had them burned. In 1551 Prospero Fontana signed and dated a large canvas of this subject in his home city of Bologna, almost four metres tall, which hangs in the church of Santa Maria del Baraccano. This arched panel in Rome is under 60 centimetres high, and the museum dates it to the same year. It belonged to the Sacchetti, a family of Florentine bankers in Rome who had once had one of their own, Cardinal Giulio Sacchetti, governing Bologna as papal legate. In 1748, weighed down by debts, the family sold its pictures to Pope Benedict XIV. Two painters valued them at 36,709 scudi, the papal court settled on 25,000, roughly what the Sacchetti owed, and the pope sent the collection up to the Capitol.