Martyrdom of St Cecilia

1620 · Galleria Palatina (Palazzo Pitti), Florence

religious

This work, which can be dated back to between 1620 and 1625, clearly shows how Riminaldi took inspiration from Caravaggio, even referring to some of the artist's works, especially his Martyrdom of St Matthew. The theatrical nature of the scene, the skilled orchestration of the cone of light covering the three figures, accentuates both the expressive power of the executioner, holding St Cecilia by the hair to uncover her neck, ready for the sword, and the dynamic movement of the angel plummeting down to the saint to honour her with the symbols of sainthood and martyrdom. Although the composition closely echoes that of Caravaggio, Riminaldi's other elements betray a decidedly classicist influence, taken from Simon Vouet and Guido Reni, and visible in the elegant sophistication of the sumptuous brocade clothing and the tender sensuality of the saint.

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About the Artist

Orazio Riminaldi

1593 – 1630

Italian painter. He studied first with the modest Pisan painter Ranieri Borghetti (1609-1636) and then with Aurelio Lomi (1556-1622); no works from this first period survive. He then moved to Rome, where his admiration for Orazio Gentileschi, Domenichino and Bartolomeo Manfredi suggests that he probably arrived there between 1610 and 1620. He was certainly there by the beginning of 1620, for in March of that year he was commissioned by Curzio Ceuli, Master of Works of Pisa Cathedral, to paint Samson Killing the Philistines for the apse of the Cathedral (in situ). He painted also the Assumption of the Virgin (completed posthumously by his brother Girolamo) for the cathedral of Pisa. He died of the plague in 1630.

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