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Beautiful representation of the martyr SAINT SEBASTIAN OIL ON CANVAS 143 X 98 CM Saint Sebastian (Narbonne, 256 – Rome, January 20, 288) was a Roman soldier, a martyr for having supported the Christian faith; venerated as a saint by the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Christian Church, he is the object of an ancient cult. Saint Sebastian lived when the empire was led by Diocletian. Originally from Narbonne and educated in Milan, he was instructed in the principles of the Christian faith. He then went to Rome, where he came into contact with the military circle directly dependent on the emperors. Having become a high officer of the imperial army, he quickly made a career and was the commander of the prestigious first praetorian court, stationed in Rome for the defense of the emperor. In this context, strong of his role, he could support Christians imprisoned, provide for the burial of martyrs and spread Christianity among officials and military personnel of the court, taking advantage of his imperial office. The story tells that one day two young Christians, Marco and Marcelliano, sons of a certain Tranquillino, were arrested on the orders of the prefect Cromazio. The father appealed for a thirty-day postponement of the trial, to convince his sons to desist and escape condemnation by sacrificing to the gods. The brothers were about to give in when Sebastian visited them, persuading them to persevere in their faith and to overcome death heroically. While he was talking to them, the tribune's face was irradiated by a miraculous light that left those present astonished, including Zoe, the wife of Nicostrato, head of the imperial chancellery, who had been mute for six years. The woman prostrated herself at the feet of the tribune who, invoking divine grace, placed his hands on her lips and made a sign of the cross, giving her back her voice. The miracle of Sebastian led to the conversion of a large number of those present: Zoe with her husband Nicostrato and her brother-in-law Castorio, the Roman prefect Cromazio and his son Tiburzio. Cromazio renounced his position as prefect and retired with other converted Christians to his villa in Campania. His son, however, remained in Rome where he suffered martyrdom; then, one by one, the other new Christians died for embracing the new religion: Marco and Marcelliano ended up pierced by lances, their father Tranquillino stoned, Zoe suspended by her hair from a tree and roasted. When Diocletian, who deeply hated the faithful of Christ, discovered that Sebastian was Christian, he exclaimed: “I have always held you among the leading men of my palace and you have worked in the shadows against me.”; Sebastian was therefore sentenced to death by him. He was tied to a stake in a site on the Palatine Hill, stripped naked, and pierced by so many arrows in every part of his body that he looked like a hedgehog. The soldiers, seeing him dying and pierced by darts, believed him dead and abandoned him on the spot so that his flesh would feed the wild beasts; but he was not, and Saint Irene of Rome, who went to recover the body to give it burial, realized that the soldier was still alive, so she transported him to her home on the Palatine Hill and began to treat his many wounds with pious dedication. Sebastian, miraculously healed, despite his friends advising him to leave the city, decided to proclaim his faith in the presence of the emperor who had inflicted the torment on him. The saint courageously reached Diocletian and his associate Maximian, who were presiding over the functions in the temple erected by Heliogabalus, in honor of the Invincible Sun, then dedicated to Hercules, and reproached them for the persecutions against Christians. Surprised at the sight of his soldier still alive, Diocletian coldly ordered that Sebastian be flogged to death, a punishment that was carried out in 304 in the hippodrome of the Palatine Hill, and then his body thrown into the Cloaca Maxima. In its rush towards the Tiber, the body became entangled near the church of San Giorgio al Velabro, where it was collected by the matron Lucina who transported it to the catacombs on the Appian Way and buried it there.