Saint Sebastian Thrown into the Cloaca Maxima

Saint Sebastian is usually shown bound to a tree and pierced by arrows; here Ludovico Carracci chose the aftermath, the moment Roman soldiers dump the saint’s limp body into the Cloaca Maxima, Rome’s ancient sewer — denying burial, the ultimate contempt for Christian rites, and reducing a heroic martyr to a worthless corpse. Cardinal Maffeo Barberini, the future Pope Urban VIII, commissioned the picture in 1612 for a subterranean family chapel in the church of Sant’Andrea della Valle, built on the site where the saint’s body was recovered. The painting is held in the J. Paul Getty Museum.