Unknown Author - Saint Matthew

The iconography of this painting is very popular in cycles dedicated to Saint Matthew. The scene shows the former tax collector, later become an apostle, intent on writing his gospel under the dictation of an angel. The same angel holds up a book containing, in Latin, the beginning of the Gospel of Matthew, with the genealogy of Christ.

Overall, stylistically, the work conforms to a typically seventeenth-century naturalism, but in a manner of popular origin. Indeed, we can see how the artist follows the aesthetic canons, first Renaissance and then Classicist in general, of a monumental rendering of the figure. Saint Matthew is characterized by ample volumes, whose plasticity is emphasized by the loose draperies of the tunic. The strong dynamism of the figure, due both to the complexity of the draperies and, above all, to the complex torsion of the body, reveals a strong Baroque inspiration on the part of the artist.

The stylistic characteristics outlined above would support a 17th-century dating of the work. The overall austere nature of the representation and the use of color, consistent with 17th-century artistic production, also support this hypothesis. We can be fairly certain that the painting was created by a local artisan, as we can discern a desire to adopt a Baroque aesthetic, yet filtered through a highly humane representation, the fruit of popular devotion. Therefore, the work is extremely interesting for its character, which reveals a type of devotion that lies outside of official canons, as can also be seen from the elaboration of a rather unusual iconographic subject. For these reasons, the painting can be considered a very important historical-artistic testimony to popular piety in the 17th century.

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