Encyclopaedia Britannica > Volume 21, ROT-Siam

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S E B —S E B
strated with him, but, finding him inflexible, ordered that
he should be bound to a stake and shot to death. After
the archers had left him for dead a devout woman, Irene,
•came by night to take his body away for burial, but, find¬
ing him still alive, carried him to her house, where his
wounds were dressed. No sooner had he wholly recovered
than he hastened to confront the emperor, reproaching him
with his impiety; Diocletian, filled with astonishment,
which soon changed into fury, ordered him to be instantly
carried off and beaten to death with rods (288). The
sentence was forthwith executed, his body being thrown
into the cloaca, where, however, it was found by another
pious matron, Lucina, whom Sebastian visited in a dream,
directing her to bury him in the Catacombs under the site
of the church now called by his name. He is celebrated
by the Roman Church on 20th January (duplex). His
cult is chiefly diffused along the eastern coast of Italy and
in other districts liable to visitations of plague. As a
young and beautiful soldier, he is a favourite subject of
sacred art, being most generally represented as undraped
and severely, though not mortally, wounded with arrows.
SEBASTIANO DEL PIOMBO (1485-1547), painter,
was born at Venice in 1485, and belongs to the Venetian
school, exceptionally modified by the Florentine or Roman.
His family name was Luciani. He was at first a musician,
chiefly a solo-player on the lute, and was in great request
among the Venetian nobility. He soon showed a turn
for painting, and became a pupil of Giovanni Bellini and
afterwards of Giorgione. His first painting of note was
done for the church of St John Chrysostom in Venice,
and is so closely modelled on the style of Giorgione that
in its author’s time it often passed for the work of that
master. It represents Chrysostom reading aloud at a
desk, a grand Magdalene in front, and two other female
and three male saints. Towards 1512 Sebastian© was
invited to Rome by the wealthy Sienese merchant Agostino
Chigi, who occupied a villa by the Tiber, since named the
Farnesina; he executed some frescos here, other leading
artists being employed at the same time. The Venetian
mode of colour was then a startling novelty in Rome.
Michelangelo saw and approved the work of Luciani,
became his personal friend, and entered into a peculiar
arrangement with him. At this period the pictorial
ability of Michelangelo (apart from his general power as
an artist, regarding which there arose no question) was
somewhat decried in Rome, the rival faculty of Raphael
being invidiously exalted in comparison ; in especial it
was contended that Buonarroti fell short as a colourist.
He therefore thought that he might try whether, by
furnishing designs for pictures and leaving to Sebastiano
the execution of them in colour, he could not maintain at
its highest level his own general supremacy in the art,
leaving Raphael to sustain the competition as he best
might. In this there seems to have been nothing particu¬
larly unfair, always assuming that the compact was not
fraudulently concealed; and the facts are so openly stated
by Michelangelo’s friend Vasari (not to speak of other
writers) that there appears to have been little or no dis¬
guise in the matter. Besides, the pictures are there to
speak for themselves; and connoisseurs have always ac¬
knowledged that the quality of Michelangelo’s unmatched
design is patent on the face of them. Of late years, how¬
ever, some writers, unnecessarily jealous for Buonarroti s
personal rectitude, have denied that his handiwork is to
be traced in the pictures bearing the name of Sebastiano.
Four leading pictures which Sebastiano painted in pursu¬
ance of his league with Buonarroti are the Pietk (earliest
of the four), in the church of the Conventuali, Viterbo,
the Transfiguration and the Flagellation, in the church of
S. Pietro in Montorio, Rome 3 and, most celebrated of
all, the Raising of Lazarus, now in the London V ational
Gallery. This grand work—more remarkable for general
strength of pictorial perception than for qualities of de¬
tailed intellectual or emotional expression—is more than
12 by 9 feet in dimensions, with the principal figures of
the natural size 3 it is inscribed “ Sebastianus Venetus
faciebat,” and was transferred from wood to canvas.in
1771. It was painted in 1517-19 for Giulio de’ Medici,
then bishop of Narbonne, afterwards Pope Clement VII. 3
and it remained in Narbonne cathedral until purchased
by the duke of Orleans early in the 18th century,—coming
to England with the Orleans gallery in 1792. It is
generally admitted that the design of Michelangelo appears
in the figure of Lazarus and of those who are busied
about him (the British Museum contains two sketches of
the Lazarus regarded as Michelangelo’s handiwork) 3 but
whether he actually touched the panel, as has often been
said, appears more than doubtful, as he left Rome about
the time when the picture was commenced. Raphael’s
Transfiguration was painted for the same patron and the
same destination. The two works were exhibited together,
and some admirers did not scruple to give the preference
to Sebastiano’s. The third of the four pictures above
mentioned, the Flagellation of Christ, though ordinarily
termed a fresco, is, according to Vasari, painted in oil
upon the wall. This was a method first practised by
Domenico Veneziano, and afterwards by some other
artists 3 but Sebastiano alone succeeded in preventing the
blackening of the colours. The contour of the figure of
Christ in this picture is supposed by many to have been
supplied by Buonarroti’s own hand. Sebastiano, always
a tardy worker, was occupied about six years upon this
work, along with its companion the Transfiguration, and
the allied figures of saints.
After the elevation of Giulio de’ Medici to the pontificate,
the office of the “ piombo ” or leaden seal—that is, the office
of sealer of briefs of the apostolic chamber—became vacant 3
two painters competed for it, Sebastiano Luciani, hitherto
a comparatively poor man, and Giovanni da Udine. Finally
Sebastiano, assuming the habit of a friar, secured the very
lucrative appointment,—with the proviso, however, that he
should pay out of his emoluments 300 scudi per annum to
Giovanni. If he had heretofore been slow in painting, he
became now supine and indifferent in a marked degree.
He lived on the fat of the land, cultivated sprightly literary
and other society, to which he contributed his own full
quota of amusement, and would scarcely handle a brush,
saying jocularly that he benefited the profession by. leav¬
ing all the more work for other artists to do. Berni, one
of his intimates, addressed a capitolo to him, and Sebastiano
responded in like versified form. One of the few subject
pictures which he executed after taking office was Chiist
carrying the Cross for the patriarch of Aquileia, also a
Madonna with the body of Christ. The former painting
is done on stone, a method invented by Sebastiano himself.
He likewise painted at times on slate,-—as in the instance
of Christ on the Cross, now in the Berlin gallery, where the
slate constitutes the background. In the same method,
and also in the same gallery, is the Dead Christ supported
by Joseph of Arimathea, with a weeping Magdalene,—
colossal half-length figures. Late in life Sebastiano had
a serious disagreement with Michelangelo with reference
to the Florentine’s great picture of the Last Judgment.
Sebastiano encouraged the pope to insist that this picture
should be executed in oil. Michelangelo, determined from
the first upon nothing but fresco, tartly replied to his
holiness that oil was only fit for women and for sluggards
like Friar Sebastian 3 and the coolness between the two
painters lasted almost up to the friar’s death. This event,
consequent upon a violent fever acting rapidly upon a