2The Martyrdom of St. Erasmus by Nicola Poussin: a masterpiece of Baroque painting

In the top ten of the Vatican Museums, there must be absolutely the Martyrdom of St. Erasmus made by the French painter Nicolas Poussin between 1628 and 1629 for the altar of the right transept of St. Peter’s Basilica and today replaced on the spot by an eighteenth-century copy in mosaic.

The work represents the atrocious martyrdom suffered by Erasmus, Bishop of Formia, during the diocletian persecutions of 303 AD. A painting where horror, classical architecture and Christian spirit are expertly calibrated, and which will become the prototype for many subsequent works of similar subject.

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