Ucoarte. Revista de Teoría e Historia del Arte, 11, 2022, pp. 223-245, ISSN: 2255-1905
SAINT SEBASTIAN. AN ICONOGRAPHIC STUDY:
FROM PAINTING TO FILM
TOMÁS MIGUEL CABRERA MIMBRERA
Investigador independiente
Fecha de recepción: 09/07/2022
Fecha de aceptación: 17/10/2022
Resumen
Este artículo busca una primera aproximación que permita una mejor comprensión
sobre la iconografía de San Sebastián tomando, en primer lugar, como referencia lo que
sobre él recogen las fuentes literarias tales como la Passio y su reflejo en el arte. En
segundo lugar, se analiza la evolución de la iconografía de este santo militar hasta el arte
contemporáneo, partiendo de las fuentes escritas, así como la influencia de su modelo
iconográfico y su primer martirio en los medios audiovisuales actuales, tomando como
ejemplo una gran cantidad de obras representativas entre las que se destacan seis
pinturas medievales, siete pinturas renacentistas, un grabado del siglo XV, una escultura
renacentista, cinco pinturas barrocas, dos dibujos del siglo XX, dos ejemplos pictóricos
siglo XXI y cuatro fotogramas de películas representativas, tanto de su contexto
europeo como americano.
Palabras clave
San Sebastián; martirio; flecha; iconografía; hagiografía; medios audiovisuales
SAINT SEBASTIAN. AN ICONOGRAPHIC STUDY:
FROM PAINTING TO FILM
Summary
This ’article aims to show a first approximation which allows a better understanding of
the iconography of St Sebastian. Firstly, it will be considered what literary sources such
as Passio refers about him. Secondly, this thesis will analyze the evolution of the
iconography of this military saint until Contemporary art, taking into account some
written sources. Finally, it will be given consideration to the influence of his
iconographic model and his first martyrdom in audiovisual media, taking as an example
a large number of representative works, among which six medieval paintings, seven
Renaissance paintings, a fifteenth-century engraving, a Renaissance sculpture, five
baroque paintings, two twentieth-century drawings, two XXI-century pictorial examples
and four stills stand out. of representative films, both from its European and American
context.
Key words
St Sebastian; martyrdom; arrow; iconography; hagiography; audiovisual media
Saint Sebastian. An iconographic study: from painting to film
224
Introduction: History and martyrdom of St Sebastian
The sources about St Sebastian are diverse. One of the most important texts of Late
Antiquity and the fundamental basis for these investigations is the Acta Sancti Sebastiani
Martyris (BHL 7543), known as Passio Sancti Sebastiani
1
, traditionally attributed to St Ambrose,
although it was written in the 5th century by the monk Arnobio, “the Younger”. Likewise,
the Golden Legend of Jacobus de Voragine is presented as another source for the study, analysis
and dissemination of the legend, martyrdom, iconographic model and the cult of St Sebastian
during the Middle Ages. Other sources are focused on more specific details, as St Ambrose’s
Commentary on Psalm CXVIII, which indicates the origin of St Sebastian in Narbonne within
a Christian family, his childhood in Milan and his transfer to Rome. It is also relevant the
History of the Lombards, written by Paul the Deacon (c. 720 - 799), a collaborator of
Charlemagne. Although it has some inaccuracies, this work narrates how an apparition
revealed that the plague epidemic which devastated the territory at the end of the 7th century
would not cease until an altar dedicated to St Sebastian was founded in the Church of Saint
Peter ad Vincula.
Considering the sources, Sebastian was a saint originally from Narbonne and raised in
Milan who became a chief of staff (princeps) of the First Cohort at the time of Emperor
Diocletian
2
, in which he was respected by all, especially by the Emperor, in spite of being
him unaware of his quality as a Christian.
Sebastian complied with military discipline, but he did not participate in the idolatrous
sacrifices. As a Christian, he exercised the apostolate among his companions, while he visited
and encouraged imprisoned Christians. It was after the imprisonment of two young men,
Marcus and Marcellianus, when Sebastian began to be known publicly as Christian. The two
young men were arrested and given thirty days to deny their faith in God or continue to
believe in Him. Sebastian, aware of the situation, went down to the dungeons to give them
words of encouragement. From that moment on, there were many conversions and,
consequently, martyrdoms, including that of the two imprisoned boys, Marcus and
Marcellianus
3
.
Nevertheless, Diocletian also found out that Sebastian was a Christian and made him
arrest. Sebastian was arrested while he was burying the martyrs known as the "Four
Crowned”
4
. He was brought before Diocletian, who reproached him: “I have always had you
among the best in my palace and you have acted in the shadows against me, insulting the
gods”
5
.
St Sebastian was not intimidated by these words but reaffirmed his faith. The punishment
ordered by the Emperor was that Sebastian should be tied to a tree and covered with arrows
in non-vital areas of the human body, so that he would not die from the arrows, but rather
bled to death and in intense and continuous pain. The soldiers, following orders, took him
to the stadium, stripped him naked, tied him to a tree and shot him with arrows. Then,
accomplished his mission and believing that Sebastian was almost dead, they abandoned his
inert body riddled with arrows. However, his friends, who were waiting hidden, approached,
and seeing him still alive, took him to the house of a Roman Christian noblewoman, called
1
Lapidge, M. (2018). The Roman Martyrs. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp 88-137.
2
Lapidge, M. (2018) pp. 95 (Passio 1).
3
Lapidge, M. (2018) pp. 88-95 (Passio 1).
4
Taking the Passio of Saint Sebastian in The Roman Martyrs (pag 125), the four Crowned Saints were:
Severus, Severinus, Carpophorus and Victorinus.
5
Carmona Muela, J. (2008). Iconografía de todos los santos. Madrid: Akal, p. 420.
Tomás Miguel Cabrera Mimbrera
225
Irene, who kept him hidden in her house and treated his wounds until he recovered
6
.
Once the saint recovered his health, his friends advised him to leave Rome, which he
flatly refused. Therefore, he returned to present himself bravely before Emperor Maximian
when he was in the middle of an offering to a god, which caused him total bewilderment
since he considered the saint to be dead. Sebastian took advantage of this situation to attack
with force against the Emperor and his beliefs. Maximian ordered him flogged to death, and
this time the soldiers should ensure his death, throwing his body into the Cloaca Maxima at
night to prevent the Christians make him a martyr. After his death, St Sebastian appeared in
a dream
7
to St Lucina, showing her the exact place where his body was hanging from a nail
and indicating the specific place where she should deposit it. At midnight, Lucina went to
the place with her servants, they took the lifeless body of the martyr and buried him in the
exact place shown in the dream, in an underground cemetery of the Roman Via Appia (today
Catacomb of Saint Sebastian). For thirty days, Santa Lucina herself the place
8
.
Thus, this saint died on January 20, 304
9
, due to his defense of the spread of the Christian
faith and the fight for the Church, for which Pope St Gaius appointed him defender of the
Church. His burial place is in the Ad Catacumbas cemetery
10
, in an underground gallery, next
to the memory of the apostles Peter and Paul, according to the Jeronimian Calendar
11
. The
Calendar of Carthage and the Gelasian and Gregorian Sacramentary attest his cult
12
.
During the plague of Rome in the year 680 his particular protection was invoked, so that
st Sebastian was considered a special advocate against the Plague.
Iconographic study: evolution and atributes
The attributes have a fundamental role for the development of artistic works, especially
the mythological and religious types, and their subsequent study. The attributes can be
defined as the symbols that serve to recognize the characters represented. In the case of
saints, these attributes can characterize an indivudual (individual character attributes) or a
category of saints (collective attributes)
13
. Individual attributes are linked to the life, legend
or martyrdom of a particular saint; for St Sebastian, his characteristic attributes are the bow,
the arrows and the tree trunk (for his martyrdom)
14
. The collective attributes would be the
roll or book for each one of the apostles or Fathers of the Church, as well as the palm for
the figure of the martyr.
Thus, the attribute-biography relationship of the saint referring to St Sebastian is reflected
in the scenes of his life executed by artists of different origins and periods: St Sebastian in
6
Voragine, J. (2017). Leyenda Aurea. Madrid: Maxtor, pp. 97-100.
7
Lapidge, M. (2018) p. 136 (Passio 89).
8
Lapidge, M. (2018) p. 136 (Passio 89).
9
Voragine, J. (2017) Depositio martyrum in M. Lapidge (ed). The Roman Martyrs. (pp 88-137). Oxford: Oxford
University Press 2018. The oldest written source preserved on the martyrdom of St Sebastian was written
around the middle of the 4th century, in which only the name of the martyr, his place of burial in the
catacombs and the date of his festivity are stated.
10
Lapidge, M. (2018) pp. 88-137 (Passio 89).
11
Bobichon, P. (2008). La plus ancienne littérature grecque chétienne. Paris: Editions Assouline, p. 206.
12
Goñi, J. A. (2010). El buen conocimiento de las fuentes litúrgicas in J. A. Goñi (ed). Paulo Rena Liturgia
Online magazine (Vol. VIII, pp. 246-259, espec. 198-199).
https://paulorenaliturgia.com
13
Monreal Tejada, L. (2000). Iconografía del cristianismo. Barcelona: El Acantilado, p. 12.
14
The attributes of this saint began to develop frequently at the beginning of the 5th century and survive
today.
Saint Sebastian. An iconographic study: from painting to film
226
his first and second martyrdom, St Sebastian exhorting Marcus and Marcellinus, etc.
However, no other episode has been so widely represented as the passage of his martyrdom,
which shows the saint tied to a post or tree and with his torso and legs pierced by arrows,
according to the Golden Legend ("the Emperor commanded that they take him out into the
field, tie him to a tree, and have a platoon of soldiers fire their bows at him and shoot him
to death”)
15
. The number of arrows which struck his body stands out from this episode,
which is usually numerous: "they left him turned into a kind of hedgehog”
16
. Other texts,
such as the Flos Sanctorum by Pedro de Ribadeneyra, insist on this idea: "they discharge as
many arrows in him, that his sacred body did not look like the body of a man, but a
hedgehog" (Fig. 1).
Delehaye claims that this huge quantity of arrows explains the fury of the persecutions
during the rule of Diocletian and Maximian, which increased notably and was exercised with
an unknown rigor until then
17
": "It is not enough that St Sebastian is crossed by some arrows;
is riddled like a hedgehog”
18
.
Taking into account the sources and attributes, this section will focus on two points of
iconographic evolution: the representation of his physique and the representation of various
scenes. The selection criteria of the successive images collected, analyzed, commented on
and linked in the sections developed below, is justified by their universal nature, as well as
their artistic masters, and their connection with the sources on the saint, such as the Passio
or the Golden Legend. These pictorial works were pioneers in the representation of the saint
in their historical context and consolidated their importance or hegemony over the years
and/or centuries until they influenced other great works developed in the 20th and 21st
centuries in new languages artistic, such as fashion world and audiovisual media.
Representations of the physicist: Old St Sebastian and rejuvenated
According to Proestaki
19
, there are no representations of St Sebastian in the Byzantine
world until the 15th century in Crete, due to Western influence, and from the 16th century
in other settings of post-Byzantine tradition. The first iconographic representations of the
saint are found in Rome in the 5th century and in them, he is represented as a person with a
hieratic and impersonal expression, of a certain age, with gray hair and beard, and dressed in
a tunic, holding the crown of martyrdom with his right hand. His representation lacks specific
features, practically homogenized with that of other saints. Only the identification of the
written name allows to distinguish it (SCS Sebastianus). This happens both in the fresco of
the crypt of St Cecilia in the Catacomb of Callistus, in which St Sebastian appears together
with other robed saints, and in the 7th century mosaic in the Church of San Pedro ad Vincula
in Rome (Fig. 2).
15
Voragine, J. (2017). p. 101.
16
Voragine, J. (2017). p. 102. In some representations, such as the painting of Giovanni del Biondo (1370),
preserved in the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo in Florence, exorbitant figures are reached. This work
represents the archetype of the iconographic model par excellence thanks to the intrusion of the loin cloth
on the saint over his half-naked body covered by numerous arrows while he is tied to a tree. Del Biondo
captures the torture of the hammer that is cruelly applied by the squad of soldiers in charge of killing the
saint, represented in the lower part of the work.
17
Delehaye, H. (1998). Les passions des martyrs et les genres littéraires. Bruselas: Société des Bollandistes, p. 247.
18
Delehaye, H. (1998). The translation is mine, p. 205.
19
Proestaki, X. (2010). Saint Sebastian: the martyr from Milan in post-Byzantine wall paintings of the 16th and 17th
centuries and the influences from Western painting, Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies. Byzantine and Modern Grek
Studies, vol. 34(n.1), p. 81.
Tomás Miguel Cabrera Mimbrera
227
The fact that various mosaics and frescoes in different places in Italy show an identical
image denotes the monotonous evolution of the reproduction of this saint
20
. The argument
for this type of representation (old and bearded), which prevailed during the Middle Ages
and lasted until the 15th century, is because of his military profession as captain of the
Emperor's guard
21
. It is not surprising, then, that he generally appears dressed as a soldier,
taking as a reference the text of the Golden Legend, in which the esteem and friendship of
Diocletian and Maximian towards him is recorded: "Diocletian and Maximian distinguished
him with their friendship, and they esteemed him so much that one and the other kept him
at the head of the first cohort, whose job was to give escorts to the emperors”
22
.
There are representations with small variations on this, as in the predella of the
Coronation Altarpiece, where St Sebastian is dressed not as a soldier but as a noble along
with other holy martyrs
23
. With a halo and the palm of martyrdom as befits his condition,
20
Darriulat, J. (1999). Sébastien le Renaissant. Paris: Lagune, p. 310.
21
Réau, L. (1997). Iconografía del arte cristiano. Tomo II, vol 5. Iconografía de los santos. Barcelona: Ed. Del
Serbal, p 196.
22
Réau, L. (1997). Iconografía del arte cristiano. Tomo II, vol 7. Iconografía de los santos. Barcelona: Ed. Del
Serbal, p 194.
23
Among these, it is common to see him forming a couple with St Fabian, since his festivity was celebrated
on the same day. This is how it appears in the Sigena altarpiece, painted by Miguel Ximénez, and preserved
in the MNAC (Fig. 3). Along with the luxurious clothing in the manner of a medieval knight, the signs of
the hammer to which St Sebastian was subjected are emphasized. According to Sebastian y Solaz, their
Fig. 1. Second martyrdom. Giovanni del Biondo.
Triptice of St Sebastian. c. 1370. Opera
del Duomo Museum
https://hmong-
es.wiki/Giovanni_del_Biondo
Fig. 2. St Sebastian. 7th century. Church S. Peter
ad Vincula. https://www.ucm.es/-bdicono-
grafiamedieval/san-sebastian