The Martyrdom of St. Ursula
Imola, Bologna, Emilia-Romagna, Italy
Church of San Nicola e San Domenico
About Church of San Nicola e San Domenico, Imola, Bologna
Church San Nicola e San Domenico
1600
Ludovico Carracci (1555, Bologna-1619, Bologna)
Oil on canvas
343 x 229 cm
Early baroque
Painting
Mid sixteenth-century, beginning seventeenth-century
Bologna
The altarpiece is hanging on the main altar of the church San Nicola e San Domenico, in Imola. It was originally painted for the left side chapel, patronised by the Vendini family. The painting survived many attempts of confiscation, including the Napoleonic suppression at the end of the eighteenth-century, thanks to the determination of the Vendini family. It is an example of Ludovico's full mature style, painted after his exposure to Venetian influence. This work testifies to the adoption of a new expressive language, a baroque rhetoric, which melds Venetian colour and mannerist composition. The chaotic bundle of victims and villains, theatrically exhibited, stand in contrast with the hieratic figure of the saint who is absorbed in prayer and clearly deriving from the St. Cecilia by Raphael. The colours are mostly dark, emphasised by a cloudy dawn; the background is the colour of blood, the same shade as Ursula's dress. This painting was a turning point for painting in Imola, not only in a positive way: patrons turned completely to Bologna and the local school of painting was blocked and made sterile by the impossible competition with the Carraccis Academy.
View Short DescriptionThe painting was commissioned by the Vandini family for the church where it hangs today. It is a great altarpiece which ties together Baroque language and Counter-reformation liturgy: Venetian colours combine with the rhetoric of gestures and feelings in a strongly emotional painting.
Inscription: LUD.CARACC[I] BONON. /PINGEBAT MDC
Arcangeli, F. Natura ed espressione nell'arte bolognese-emiliana (exhibition catalogue) (ed. F. Arcangeli), Bologna, 1970, pp. 42-44; p. 182; p. 214.
Mazza, A. in Biblia Pauperum (exhibition catalogue)(eds. N. Ceroni and G. Viroli), Bologna, 1992, pp. 102-104.
Mazza A. “Sul crinale tra Cinque e Seicento: il Martirio di Sant'Orsola di Ludovico Carracci”, Ludovico a Imola. Il martirio di Sant'Orsola di Ludovico Carracci nella chiesa di San Domenico(ed. Musei Civici di Imola), Imola (Bo), 2001, pp. 21-39.
Copyright image: Archivio fotografico Musei Civici di Imola.
Oriana Orsi "The Martyrdom of St. Ursula" in "Discover Baroque Art", Museum With No Frontiers, 2024. https://baroqueart.museumwnf.org/database_item.php?id=object;BAR;it;Mus13;4;en
Prepared by: Oriana OrsiOriana Orsi
SURNAME: Orsi
NAME: Oriana
AFFILIATION: Musei Civici, Imola
TITLE: curator
CV: graduated and specialized in History of Art at the University of Bologna, curator of the Musei Civici di Imola. She cares for the collections and organizes exhibitions; she also collaborates with the Soprintendenza ai beni storico artistici of Bologna and with the University. She is a specialist in cataloguing works of art and she has written many papers about this subject; since 2004 she is colloborating with the Assessorato alla cultura of the Province of Ferrara about the project Este Court Archive (www.eca.ferrara.it) for the reconstruction of the Ferrarese cultural heritage at the court of the Este family.
Translation by: Antonella MampieriAntonella Mampieri
SURNAME: Mampieri
NAME: Antonella
AFFILIATION: Musei Civici d’Arte Antica, Bologna
TITLE: Art Hitorian
CV:
Graduated and specialised at the University of Bologna. She is a specialist in Bolognese late Baroque art, namely sculpture. Among other subjects she has been studying nineteenth-century funerary art in the Bologna monumental cemetery, la Certosa.
Translation copyedited by: Lisa Kelman
MWNF Working Number: IT2 04
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