Polyptych of Saint Barbara

The Polyptych of Saint Barbara

The Polyptych of Saint Barbara (Italian: Polittico di Santa Barbara) was painted by Palma Vecchio in the early 1520s as the altar-piece for the Venetian church of Santa Maria Formosa. It is a composition of six panels, with Saint Barbara in the centre, under the dead Christ, and to right and left Saints Dominic (or Vincent Ferrer), Sebastian, John the Baptist and Anthony the Abbot. The central panel of Saint Barbara is considered by many to be one of Palma's greatest achievements.

Quotes about the Polyptych of Saint Barbara

• And Palma Vecchio, too, must be held in grateful reverence for his Santa Barbara, standing in calm, grand beauty above an altar in the Church of Santa Maria Formosa. It is an almost unique presentation of a hero-woman, standing in calm preparation for martyrdom, without the slightest air of pietism, yet with the expression of a mind filled with serious conviction.
  • Cross, J. W., ed. (1885). George Eliot's Life as Related in Her Letters and Journals. Vol. 2. Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons. p. 244.

• Having convinced herself that Mr Casaubon was altogether right, she recovered her equanimity, and was an agreeable image of serene dignity when she came into the drawing-room in her silver-grey dress—the simple lines of her dark-brown hair parted over her brow and coiled massively behind, in keeping with the entire absence from her manner and expression of all search after mere effect. Sometimes when Dorothea was in company, there seemed to be as complete an air of repose about her as if she had been a picture of Santa Barbara looking out from her tower into the clear air; but these intervals of quietude made the energy of her speech and emotion the more remarked when some outward appeal had touched her.
  • Eliot, George (1874). Middlemarch, A Study of Provincial Life. 2nd ed. Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons. Bk. I. Chap. x. p. 62.

• It is impossible for sight or spirit to be indifferent to the spell of that exquisite countenance of St. Barbara; we have never been able to pass by Santa Maria Formosa without stopping for a moment to pay our devotions to the lovely patroness of the gunnery of the Most Serene Republic. The drawing of the drapery is superb, the flesh and hands admirable for life and softness; it is the beauty of goodness, the noble serenity of a saint who is still a woman.
  • Yriarte, Charles (1896). Venice: Its History, Art, Industries and Modern Life. (Translated from the French by F. J. Sitwell). Philadelphia: Henry T. Coates & Co. p. 260.