04 Works, Today, April 21st, is St. Hieromartyr Januarius's day, With Footnotes - #107

Louis Finson, (1580/1585–1617)

Saint Januarius shows his own relics, c. 1610-1612

Oil on canvas

Height: 126.5 cm (49.8 in); Width: 92.5 cm (36.4 in)

Palmer Art Museum at Pennsylvania State University

Louis Finson, Lodewijk Finson or Ludovicus Finsonius (Bruges, between 1574 and 1580 – Amsterdam, 1617) was a Flemish painter, draughtsman, copyist and art dealer. He painted portraits, religious compositions, allegorical paintings and genre scenes. Moving to Italy early in his career, he became one of the first Flemish followers of Caravaggio, whom he knew personally in Naples. He produced a number of copies after works by Caravaggio. He worked for a number of years in various cities in France where he created altarpieces and portraits. He is known for being the co-owner together with his fellow Flemish painter and business partner Abraham Vinck of two paintings by Caravaggio. Louis Finson played a major role in the Northern Caravaggesque movement through his own works as well as his role as an art dealer. More on Louis Finson

Hieromartyr Januarius Bishop of Benevento, and the deacons Proculus, Sossius and Faustus, Desiderius the Reader, Eutychius and Acution suffered martyrdom for Christ about the year 305 during the persecution ordered by the emperor Diocletian (284-305).

During the ​1 1⁄2-year-long persecution of Christians by Emperor Diocletian, he hid his fellow Christians and prevented them from being caught. Unfortunately, while visiting Sossius in jail, he too was arrested.

Because of his firm confession of Christianity, they threw the saint into a red-hot furnace. He came out unharmed. 

Jusepe de Ribera, (1591–1652) 

Saint Januarius leaves the furnace, c. 1645

Oil on canvas

Height: 320 cm (10.4 ft), Width: 200 cm (78.7 in)

Royal Chapel of the Treasure, Naples, Italy

José de Ribera (January 12, 1591 – September 2, 1652) was a Spanish Tenebrist painter and printmaker, better known as Jusepe de Ribera. He also was called Lo Spagnoletto ("the Little Spaniard") by his contemporaries and early writers. Ribera was a leading painter of the Spanish school, although his mature work was all done in Italy. More on José de Ribera

Then at Menignus’s command, they stretched him out on a bench and beat him with iron rods until his bones were exposed.

Artemisia Gentileschi, (1593-) 

The Martyrdom of St Januarius in the Amphitheater at Pozzuoli, circa 1636-1637

Oil on canvas

Height: 300 cm (118.1 in); Width: 200 cm (78.7 in)

Cathedral in Pozzuoli , Naples , Italy

Artemisia Gentileschi; (July 8, 1593 – c. 1656) was an Italian Baroque painter, today considered one of the most accomplished painters in the generation following that of Caravaggio. In an era when women painters were not easily accepted by the artistic community or patrons, she was the first woman to become a member of the Accademia di Arte del Disegno in Florence.

She painted many pictures of strong and suffering women from myth and the Bible – victims, suicides, warriors.

Her best-known work is Judith Slaying Holofernes (a well-known medieval and baroque subject in art), which "shows the decapitation of Holofernes, a scene of horrific struggle and blood-letting". That she was a woman painting in the seventeenth century and that she was raped and participated in prosecuting the rapist, long overshadowed her achievements as an artist. For many years she was regarded as a curiosity. Today she is regarded as one of the most progressive and expressionist painters of her generation. More on Artemisia Gentileschi

In the crowd were Deacon Faustus and the Reader Desiderius, who wept at the sight of their bishop’s suffering. The pagans surmised that they were Christians, and threw them into prison with the hieromartyr Januarius, in the city of Puteolum. At this prison were two deacons who had been jailed for confessing Christ: Saints Sossius and Proculus, and also two laymen, Saints Eutychius and Acution.

On the following morning they led out all the martyrs into the circus to be torn to pieces by wild beasts, but the beasts would not touch them. Menignus claimed that all the miracles were due to sorcery on the part of the Christians, and immediately he became blinded and cried out for help. The gentle hieromartyr Januarius prayed for his healing, and Menignus recovered his sight. The torturer’s blindness of soul, however, was not healed. He accused the Christians of sorcery, and ordered the martyrs beheaded before the walls of the city (+ 305).

Girolamo Pesci

Martyrdom of Saint Januarius, circa 1727

Oil on canvas

262 x 193 cm

Bishop's Library, Vác, Hungary

Gerolamo Pesci (1679–1759) was an Italian painter, active in a Baroque style.[1]

He was born in Rome. He painted an altarpiece depicting Saints Dominic, Francis of Paola and Leonardo worshipping the Holy Trinity for the Cathedral of St Peter the Apostle of Zagarolo. He painted a San Carlo and other Saints for the church of San Filippo in San Severino Marche.[2] He also painted in 1721 a portrait of James Francis Edward Stuart, now at Stanford Hall, Leicestershire. More on Gerolamo Pesci 

Christians from surrounding cities took up the bodies of the holy martyrs for burial, and those of each city took one, in order to have an intercessor before God. The inhabitants of Neapolis (Naples) took the body of the hieromartyr Januarius. With the body, they also collected his dried blood.

Since the fifteenth century, the blood liquifies when the container is placed near another relic, believed to be the martyr’s head. Many miracles proceeded from the relics of the hieromartyr Januarius. During an eruption of Vesuvius around 431, the inhabitants of the city prayed to Saint Januarius to help them. The lava stopped, and did not reach the city. More on Hieromartyr Januarius

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