San Sebastiano

Perugino ran one of the most productive workshops in central Italy around 1500, and a successful composition was repeated for new buyers. This Saint Sebastian is his own copy of a picture now in the Louvre, close to identical, only without the ruined architecture and the signature of the original. The saint is tied to a column and pierced with arrows, calm and almost serene, his eyes turned upward. That calm was part of the appeal, because Sebastian was invoked against plague, his arrow wounds standing in for the sudden strike of disease, and cities ordered images of him in hope of protection. Perugino was the teacher of the young Raphael, and this smooth, balanced clarity is much of what Raphael carried away from him.