Saint Rosalia Interceding for Victims of the Plague in Palestrina

Saint Rosalia Interceding for Victims of the Plague in Palestrina

Carlo Maratti

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This attractive drawing is a finished composition study, with some differences, for a painting of Saint Rosalia interceding on behalf of the plague victims of Palestrina. Maratti received the commission for this votive image from Prince Maffeo Barberini in 1656 following an outbreak of plague. The work originally hung in the chapel adjacent to the Barberini palace in Palestrina, a small city near Rome, and is now in the Corsini Collection in Florence. A second drawing of a similar subject showing Saint Rosalia interceding with Christ is in the Museum's collection (inv. 61.212.2) ; it is not connected with the Palestrina painting, however, but probably to an unrecorded votive altarpiece.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Saint Rosalia Interceding for Victims of the Plague in PalestrinaSaint Rosalia Interceding for Victims of the Plague in PalestrinaSaint Rosalia Interceding for Victims of the Plague in PalestrinaSaint Rosalia Interceding for Victims of the Plague in PalestrinaSaint Rosalia Interceding for Victims of the Plague in Palestrina

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.