06 works, Today, November 29th, is St. Saturninus Bishop of Toulouse's day, his story, illustrated #332

Unknown artist

St. Saturninus, c. 12th century

St. Saturninus, the first bishop of Toulouse, is in the center

Altar frontal, wood
Museu Nacional de Arte de Catalunya, Barcelona

St. Saturninus was a disciple of St. John the Baptist and became a follower of Christ. Later he was consecrated Bishop by St. Peter and was sent as a missionary from Rome to the Pyrenees Mountain area. He became the first Bishop and Apostle of Toulouse, France.

Unknown artist

St. Peter sent out apostles to spread the Word of Christ

St. Saturninus became the first Bishop of Toulouse

I have no further description, at this time

St. Saturninus fixed his episcopal see at Toulouse. He converted a great number of idolaters by his preaching and miracles. He assembled his flock in a small church; and that the capitol, which was the chief temple in the city, lay in the way between that church and the saint's habitation. 

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. (1571-1610)

He assembled his flock in a small church

The Calling of St. Matthew, c.1598-1601

Oil on panel

322 cm × 340 cm (127 in × 130 in)

Location San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (29 September 1571 in Caravaggio – 18 July 1610) was an Italian painter active in Rome, Naples, Malta, and Sicily between 1592 and 1610. His paintings, which combine a realistic observation of the human state, both physical and emotional, with a dramatic use of lighting, had a formative influence on Baroque painting.

Caravaggio trained as a painter in Milan under Simone Peterzano who had himself trained under Titian. In his twenties Caravaggio moved to Rome where there was a demand for paintings to fill the many huge new churches and palazzos being built at the time. It was also a period when the Church was searching for a stylistic alternative to Mannerism in religious. Caravaggio's innovation was a radical naturalism that combined close physical observation with a dramatic use of chiaroscuro which came to be known as tenebrism (the shift from light to dark with little intermediate value).

He gained attention in the art scene of Rome in 1600 with the success of his first public commissions, the Martyrdom of Saint Matthew and Calling of Saint Matthew. Thereafter he never lacked commissions or patrons, yet he handled his success poorly. He was jailed on several occasions, vandalized his own apartment, and ultimately had a death sentence pronounced against him by the Pope after killing a young man, possibly unintentionally, on May 29, 1606. He fled from Rome with a price on his head. He was involved in a brawl in Malta in 1608, and another in Naples in 1609. This encounter left him severely injured. A year later, at the age of 38, he died under mysterious circumstances in Porto Ercole in Tuscany, reportedly from a fever while on his way to Rome to receive a pardon.

Famous while he lived, Caravaggio was forgotten almost immediately after his death, and it was only in the 20th century that his importance to the development of Western art was rediscovered. More on Caravaggio

In this temple oracles were given; but the devils were struck dumb by the presence of the saint as he passed that way. 

Jean-Louis Bézard

The martyrdom of Saint Saturnin, c. 1830–1834

Oil on canvas

375 x 482 cm

 Church Notre-Dame du Taur, Toulouse

Jean-Louis Bezard, born on November 25, 1799 in Toulouse and died on November 3, 1881 in Paris,  was a neoclassic French painter.

Jean-Louis Bezard wass known as a religious painter. He was a student of Pierre-Narcisse Guérin and François-Édouard Picot at the School of Fine Arts in Paris . He won the second prize in the Prix de Rome competition in 1825 and the Grand Prix ​​de Rome in 1829 for a painting on the theme of Jacob refusing to deliver Benjamin .

After his stay at the Villa Medici in Rome, he pursued a career as a painter of history and religious subjects. He produced a series of paintings commissioned by King Louis-Philippe to decorate the French History Museum in Versailles.

He was also a portrait painter. The painting of M. Chibourg and his grandson painted in 1828 can be found in the Museum of Fine Arts in Blois. More on Jean-Louis Bezard

The priests spied him one day going by, and seized and dragged him into the temple. declaring that he should either appease the offended deities by offering sacrifice to them, or expiate the crime with his blood. Saturninus boldly replied: "I adore one only God, and to him I am ready to offer a sacrifice of praise. Your gods are devils, and are more delighted with the sacrifice of your souls than with those of your bullocks. How can I fear them who, as you acknowledge, tremble before a Christian?" 

The infidels, incensed at this reply, abused the saint with all the rage that a mad zeal could inspire, and after a great variety of indignities, tied his feet to a wild bull, which was brought thither to be sacrificed. 

Richard de Montbaston

Martyrdom of Saint Saturnin
Legenda Aurea, c. 1290

Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence

Richard Montbaston was a copyist in Paris in the late 14th  century. From his workshop came out in particular the Roman of the rose , illuminated by his wife, Jeanne.

Having sworn in the booksellers' oath in 1338, Richard de Montbaston is mentioned as a "bookseller" in the colophon in the Life of the Saints . On the other hand, his wife, Jeanne, took the oath of the booksellers in 1353 as illuminatrix and libraria , which gave rise to speculations according to which if Richard had the title of copyist and was indeed the owner of the workshop, he it would be impossible to attribute to him the illuminations of his manuscripts and that they should be due to his wife, Jeanne, although her work is not documented in any surviving manuscript. More on Richard Montbaston

The beast being driven from the temple, ran violently down the hill, so that the martyr's scull was broken, and his brains dashed out. His happy soul was released from the body by death, and fled to the kingdom of peace and glory, and the bull continued to drag the sacred body, and the limbs and blood were scattered on every side, till, the cord breaking, what remained of the trunk was left in the plain without the gates of the city. 

Marc Arcis

The martyrdom of Saint Saturnin, c. 1720 

Gilded lead altarpiece of the main altar
 Basilica Saint-Sernin, Toulouse, France

Marc Arcis (1655–1739, Toulouse) was a French sculptor. He trained the painter Antoine Rivalz. He produced busts for a galerie des Illustres in Toulouse between 1674 and 1677. In Paris, he took part in the interior decoration of the église de la Sorbonne and produced works for Versailles. After 1690, he based himself solely in Toulouse, decorating several chapels and the churches of Saint-Sernin and Saint-Étienne there. More on Marc Arcis 

Two devout women laid the sacred remains on a bier, and hid them in a deep ditch, to secure them from any further insult, where they lay in "wooden coffin" till the reign of Constantine the Great. Then Hilary, bishop of Toulouse, built a small chapel over this his holy predecessor's body. The martyrdom of this saint probably happened m the reign of Valerian, in 257. More on St. Saturninus Bishop of Toulouse

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