Ancient Painting Of The Italian School Of 1600

"The summer of San Martino"
Oil on canvas - Dimensions 196 X 125 cm
Important painting from 1619, with original canvas and frame, a beautiful chromatic representation of the summer of San Martino.
The work has a dedication and is distinguished by a noble coat of arms.
During the restoration phase we have adopted an absolutely conservative approach which has allowed us to keep both the canvas and the frame in their original manufacture.

 
St. Martin was born in Sabaria Sicca (today's Szombathely, in Hungary) in an outpost of the Roman Empire on the border with Pannonia. His father, a military tribune of the legion, gave him the name of Martin in honor of Mars, the god of war. While still a child he moved with his parents to Pavia, where his father had received a farm as a veteran, and he spent his childhood in that city. At the age of ten he ran away from home for two days which he spent in a church (probably in Pavia).
In 331 an imperial edict forced all the sons of veterans to join the Roman army. He was recruited in the Imperial Scholae, a chosen body of 5,000 perfectly equipped units: he therefore had a horse and a slave. He was sent to Gaul, to the city of Amiens, near the border, and spent most of his soldiering there. He was part of the imperial guard of non-combatant troops who ensured public order, the protection of the imperial post, the transfer of prisoners or the safety of important people.


The tradition of cloak cutting
As circitor, his job was the night watch and the inspection of the guard posts, as well as the night surveillance of the garrisons. During one of these patrols, the episode that changed his life took place (and which is still today the one most remembered and most used in iconography). In the harsh winter of 335 Martin met a half-naked beggar. Seeing him suffering, he cut his military cloak (the white chlamys of the imperial guard) in two and shared it with the beggar.
The following night he saw Jesus in a dream dressed in half of his military cloak. He heard Jesus say to the angels about him: "Here is Martino, the Roman soldier who is not baptized, he has clothed me". When Martino woke up his cloak was intact. The miraculous cloak was preserved as a relic and became part of the relic collection of the Merovingian kings of the Franks. The medieval Latin term for "short cloak", chapel, was extended to the persons in charge of keeping the cloak of St. Martin, the chaplains, and by these it was applied to the royal oratory, which was not a church, called a chapel.
THE WORK WILL BE SHIPPED IN A WOODEN CASE AND WILL BE ACCOMPANIED BY A CERTIFICATE OF AUTHENTICITY