Aurelio Lomi (Pisa, 1556 - 1624), Martyrdom of Santo Stefano

Aurelio Lomi (Pisa, 1556 - 1624)
Martyrdom of Santo Stefano
Oil on canvas, 122 x 104 cm

The work examined is attributed for stylistic and formal characteristics to the Tuscan painter Aurelio Lomi (Pisa, 29 February 1556 - Pisa, 23 May 1624). Born in Pisa, Aurelio was initiated into painting by his father, the Florentine goldsmith Giovanni Battista Lomi, also the natural father of the famous Orazio Gentileschi (who later adopted his mother's surname) and Baccio Lomi, both painters. It has been hypothesized that Aurelius had a first Roman stay already between 1575 and 1576, immediately after the death of his father, a circumstance in which he would accompany his brother Horace to the Capitoline city, at the time just thirteen years old. Precisely in the Eternal City he left his first surviving work, the frescoes depicting scenes from the Life of the Virgin and the Birth of Christ in the Pinelli chapel in Santa Maria in Vallicella, a cycle commissioned by the Genoese banker Giovanni Agostino Pinelli. Certainly the Roman models had to be an important reference during his first training (especially Francesco Salviati, Daniele da Volterra and Taddeo Zuccari), as well as the painters of the Florentine artistic context, including Andrea del Sarto, Fra 'Bartolomeo and Bronzino. In fact, Lomi is documented in the Tuscan capital in 1578, resulting enrolled in the Academy of drawing of S. Luca. In 1588 the painter returned to Pisa, where he found employment with surprising rapidity in commissions of considerable respect, working in the Camposanto and for the Opera del Duomo. Even when he moved to Genoa in 1597, Aurelio quickly established himself in the figurative context of the city, obtaining numerous commissions and conquering a sort of leadership on the front of the canvases of ecclesiastical destination. Aurelio's pictorial activity was actually concentrated in religious orders: there were several altarpieces and frescoes with a sacred subject made by him, and this production continued also in the last years of his life when he returned first to Florence and then in his native town, where he died on May 23, 1624. The work analyzed here depicting the martyrdom of Saint Stephen is no exception. The holy martyr appears kneeling in the center with open arms and looks hopefully upwards, where on the clouds are the Father and the Son, illuminated by a source of light. Around him there is a multitude of Jews. Some of them have stones in their hands ready to be thrown, making their martyrdom. The figures are placed in artificial and theatrical poses with the exasperation of anatomical details and gestures. Behind the stoners there is a landscape where you can see the ruins of a city, an allusion to ancient Rome and the imminent end of paganism. The impressive stage presentation, the iridescent and brilliant hues used, as well as the intense light that hits the characters are striking. Probable compositional model for this work must have been the canvas of the same subject made in 1521 by Giulio Romano for the Church of Santo Stefano in Genoa. Lomi mentions in particular the Roman master through the figure of the stoner with a red robe who emerges from the group with dynamism and through the representation of the young and blond Saul, witness of the stoning, painted on the bottom right, sitting on some clothes left there. It also highlights the iconographic similarity with the altarpiece that Aurelio painted between 1602-1604 for the church of Santa Maria della Pace, now kept at the Museum of Sant'Agostino.