St Benedict, and his companion St Onuphrius, display the same skinny nudity, the physicality that Tanzio not only used to represent the passion for anatomy but also to express mental content through the language of the body – a language specific to painting. 

This painting was published by Wart Arslan in 1948. It shows St Benedict during an episode from his life described in the Dialogues of St Gregory the Great and in the Golden Legend. The young saint travelled to Subiaco where he met Romanus, a monk at a nearby convent. He took the habit and withdrew to an inaccessible cave on Mount Taleo (now within the monastery of the Sacro Speco), living there for three years and spending his time in meditation. While in isolation he was tempted by the devil, who tormented him with the image of a woman he knew. He therefore stripped off all his clothes and threw himself into a bramble bush. St Gregory describes how his fleshly wounds cleansed the wounds of his soul. Tanzio depicts the saint intent upon his strict penitence, his eyes wild and feverish. His anxiety stands out against the backdrop of trees and branches. The story tells of playful birds, squirrels and deer, shedding light on the hermit’s daily life. In the small scene in the background, the saint receives bread to eat, dropped down to him on a rope by the monk Romanus (fig. 1). In the distance we can glimpse Subiaco and the Aniene valley. The figure of Benedict evokes other hermits by association, such as the monk Paul of Thebes and also St Francis. 

The painting’s dimensions, composition and stylistic features, together with the wild presence of the saint, all unmistakably refer to the St Onuphrius (oil on canvas, 90 x 115.1 cm) in the Koelliker Collection, formerly in the Contini Bonacossi Collection in Florence. At first glance, it combines two quests for spirituality: the concept of wilderness underlying St Francis’s experience in La Verna and the leitmotif of the painter’s vocation. Having left his home in Valsesia for Rome and Naples, Tanzio was impressed by the work of Caravaggio and developed his own original vision of the world, focusing on nature and fervent religion. During his early period in Abruzzo, where he produced masterpieces such as the Circumcision in Fara San Martino and the Madonna and Saints in Pescocostanzo, he discovered the rugged charm of his native mountains. He created intense images of St Francis at Prayer, receiving the stigmata in wooded and rocky settings, at the foot of Maiella.1 After returning to Varallo, he worked in the large theatre of the Sacro Monte, decorating the dramatic chapels of the Passion of Christ with his brother Giovanni. His fine interpretation of Caravaggio’s style reached a turning point with the plague of 1630, paving the way for a mystical agitation interpreted in strong resonance with nature, as in the case of the Rest on the Flight to Egypt in Houston. While still evoking impressions of his early Abruzzo landscapes, this superb spectral pair of paintings belong to this sublime finale. St Benedict, and his companion St Onuphrius, display the same skinny nudity, the physicality that Tanzio not only used to represent the passion for anatomy but also to express mental content through the language of the body - a language specific to painting. The expanse of the natural setting - a magical and enchanted wood that radically modifies the relationship between the figure and background - is unusual compared to the meditations of various Baptists in the desert and Jerome, painted with close ties to models by Caravaggio and in full elective affinity with painters in the style of Borromeo. As Giovanni Testori observed in 1955, this occurred “freely in parallel with the outcomes of the Flemish and Dutch ‘Petits-maitres’ from the circle of Elsheimer and Rubens,”2 while in 1962 Marco Rosci confirmed: “The choice is definitely focused on the North, almost returning to the Walser stamp of Heinrich d’Alagna”.3 It is not just a stylistic turnaround, but rather a profound change in feelings and thoughts: the figure of the penitent man is immersed within a world that towers over him, almost resembling a silent echo engrossed by his existential and religious anxiety. The bodies of the hermits register mystical exploration in every flinch and every shiver. St Benedict is absorbed in a prayer rich in mystery and saddened awareness. This expression is similar to that seen in the torment of the missionary martyrs of Nagasaki, shown in the artist’s extreme frescoes in Borgosesia, where it marks the pain of penitence and the crucial moments of the ascetic development of St Francis. 

[Filippo Maria Ferro]

The painting by Tanzio da Varallo, one of the best interpreters of late Mannerism in Piedmont and Lombardy, was known to be in the collection as early as 1993, as demonstrated by its presence in the handwritten ten inventory of 30 June of that year [Ed.]. 

1 F. M. Ferro, “Tanzio e la scena del ‘naturalismo’ abruzzese”, in Naples 2014-15, pp. 61-71; m. Nicolaci, in Ibid., p. 120. 

2 G. Testori, in Turin-Ivrea1955, p. 55. 

3 Rosci 1962, p. 255.