Pietro Testa
(Lucca 1607/11 – Rome 1650)
Allegory of the Massacre of the Innocents
Oil on canvas, 123.5 x 173.5 cm
This is Pietro Testa’s masterpiece and belonged to Cardinal Fabrizio’s collection, together with the beautiful Sacrifice of Iphigenia, also in the Spada Gallery. An exemplary painting not only of the revival of Venetian Renaissance painting in the second half of the 17th century, but also of the influence of the art of Nicolas Poussin, the Massacre combines in a “conceptual” and Baroque manner the two moments of the Gospel of Matthew, that of the massacre of the children and that of the flight to Egypt. The statuesque figure of the Executioner, to whom all the meaning of the terrible tragedy is entrusted, owes much to the artist’s tireless study of ancient works; in the background is a splendid river landscape, while on the boat of the fleeing Holy Family the symbol of the Cross can already be glimpsed as an anticipation and Christological synthesis. Above, surrounded by cherubs and holding a lamb in her arms, is the open apparition of Innocence, as is typical of the iconographic repertoire used by painters. Her gesture expresses the attempt to call the murderer back to humanity, abandoned in a blind rage, as well as the subversion of the natural order of things. The work dates from the late 1730s or the beginning of the following decade.
