Oil on canvas painting measuring 98 x 75 cm without frame and 105 x 83 cm with frame, depicting a Madonna and Child enthroned between Saints Defendente and Fermo by the painter Pietro Ronzelli (Bergamo, active between 1588 and 1621).
The painting, well preserved, depicts the Madonna and Child enthroned between two saints in armor, identifiable by inscriptions on the back of the canvas.
Naturally, the two saints are two soldiers of Egyptian and African origin who did not renounce their Catholic faith and died as martyrs; both are depicted according to traditional iconography, i.e., dressed as ancient Roman soldiers with armor, swords, and palms.
The passionate interpretation of the religious image, achieved with compact brushstrokes applied to a dark background, highlights a modus operandi typical of a Lombard painter from the late 16th/early 17th century who favored bright color schemes and a somewhat visionary formal expressiveness, as evidenced by the corpulent and regular brushstrokes and the types of figures depicted.
The name that immediately comes to mind is Pietro Ronzelli, an artist probably born around 1560 and died after 1621; on this canvas, we can note Ronzelli's characteristic blend of influences derived from the paintings of Moroni and Cavagna.
These qualities lead us to place the work at the beginning of the 17th century, when the painter brought to maturity a Counter-Reformation and complex visual concept, in which conscientious execution expressed through balanced forms coexisted.
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Dr. Riccardo Moneghini
Art Historian
