The Death of St. Peter Martyr

1530–35

Giovanni Girolamo Savoldo (Italian, active 1506–1548)

Here, Giovanni Girolamo Savoldo depicted the final moments in the life of Saint Peter Martyr, a 13th-century Dominican friar who was murdered by Cathar heretics whom he wished to reconvert to Catholicism. By choosing a three-quarter-length format, Savoldo focused attention on the contrasting emotional states of the serenely resigned saint and his elegantly brutish assailant.

Savoldo lived in Venice but had ties to the city of Brescia in nearby Lombardy. He created a darkly poetic style by investing the Lombard artistic tradition of literal realism with the rich textural and atmospheric effects of Titian and other Venetian painters.

Status: On View, Gallery 206
Department: Painting and Sculpture of Europe

Artist: Giovanni Girolamo Savoldo
Title: The Death of St. Peter Martyr
Place: Italy (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1530–1535
Medium: Oil on canvas
Inscriptions: Inscribed lower left: CR[edo in Dio] [I believe in God]
Dimensions: 115.3 × 141 cm (45 5/16 × 55 1/2 in.); Framed: 144.8 × 170.2 × 16.9 cm (57 × 67 × 6 5/8 in.)
Credit Line: Lacy Armour Endowment
Reference Number: 2001.330
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/158137/manifest.json

“A selection of 2001 museum acquisitions,” Apollo (December 2001), p. 31 (ill.).
Holland Cotter, “Art Review: Paying an Informal Call on the Master,” New York Times (May 18, 2001).
Holland Cotter, “Art Guide,” New York Times (May 25, 2001), ill.
Mina Gregori, “Giovanni Girolamo Savoldo: The Death of St. Peter Martyr,” in Hall and Knight Ltd. MMI (London; New York: Hall and Knight Ltd., 2001), cover (ill.), pp. 71-77, cat. no. 1.
David Masello, “Saint and Sinner” from “100 Top Treasures,” in Art and Antiques (November 2002), p. 70 (ill.).
“New Acquisition,” Art Institute of Chicago News and Events (January/February 2002), p. 5 (ill.).
Creighton E. Gilbert, “Savoldo’s Death of Peter Martyr” in Venezia, le Marche e la civiltà adriatica: per festeggiare i 90 anni di Pietro Zampetti from Arte Documento 17-19 (2003), pp. 290-293 (ill.).
Larry J. Feinberg, “Notable Acquisitions at the Art Institute of Chicago,” Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 30, 1 (2004), pp. 54-55 (ill.).
Vittorio Sgarbi and Mauro Lucco, Natura e maniera tra Tiziano e Caravaggio: le ceneri violette di Giorgione, exh. cat. (Milan: Skira, 2004), pp. 152-3, under cat. no. 29.

Possibly John Talbot (died 1852), 16th Earl of Shrewsbury, Alton Towers, Staffordshire, by 1835, if the painting is to be identified with the “Death of Peter Martyr” by Pordenone mentioned by Gustav Friedrich Waagen, “Letter XXVIII,” in Works of art and artists in England, vol. 3 (London: J. Murray, 1838), p. 251, recording his visit to Alton Towers in 1835, or the “Peter Martyr” by Titian mentioned by Ebenezer Rhodes, The Derbyshire tourist’s guide and travelling companion… to which is added, the detail of an excursion from Dove-Dale to Ilam Hall, and Alton Towers (London: R. Goombridge, 1837), p. 271 [for the likelihood of ownership by Shrewsbury, see Gilbert 2003]; possibly by descent in the Talbot family, with a member of the family giving it to St. Alban’s Roman Catholic Church, Macclesfield, Cheshire; St. Alban’s Roman Catholic Church, Macclesfield, Cheshire, probably by 1900, but certainly by 1930 [according to letter of July 11, 2001, from John Tomasso to Nicholas Hall, copy in curatorial file]; sold to Tomasso Brothers Fine Art, Leeds, by 1990 [according to letter of June 21, 2000, from Nicholas Hall to Larry Feinberg and e-mail correspondence of February 29, 2016, between Kelli Sohanpaul and Amanda Block; copies in curatorial file]; sold by Hall and Knight, London and New York, on behalf of Tomasso Brothers; to the Art Institute of Chicago, 2001.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

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