The panels present full-length depictions of St Roch and St Sebastian against the background of a landscape with figures. 

As is customary (Piacenza 2000), the former is dressed as a pilgrim with a short tunic, cloak (bearing the papal emblem on the shoulder), knapsack, staff and hat with the cockle shell and images of the cross and the Holy Face. One of his long stockings is undone to reveal the plague sore on his thigh. He leans against an apple tree, a reference to the cross of Christ, for which he fought. In this connection, Levi d’Ancona1 draws attention to the presence of the crusaders’ emblem on his hat and the papal emblem on his cloak. The abundant vegetation at the saint’s feet includes cyclamens, perhaps anemones and, in the centre of the foreground, cornflowers, alluding respectively to the Virgin’s sorrow, to death and to Christ.2 The background presents a village on the left with the figure of a soldier in the foreground and a lake on the right with some houses on the shore. St Sebastian is portrayed undergoing martyrdom in complete serenity, his body, naked apart from a loincloth, riddled with arrows. He is bound to an oak tree, the symbol of patience, endurance and unshakeable faith.3 The columbines, daisies and buttercups on the left are allusions to the Passion, purity of heart and death,4 while the fern on the right refers, in association with the saint’s martyrdom,5 to the plague. Both works were indeed certainly produced as votive offerings for relief from an epidemic.6 Roman soldiers and Sebastian’s executioners can be seen in the background among ruins that include breached walls, columns and a triumphal arch. 

The two panels are fairly thick, St Roch up to four centimetres and St Sebastian up to three centimetres, but have been cut down to remove a large amount of the upper section and trimmed on either side and the bottom. The support of St Sebastian is slightly warped. The backs of the panels, for which no restoration is documented, have been planed down and bear no inscriptions apart from the numbers 48 and 49 written respectively on St Sebastian and St Roch in felt-tip pen. The painted surface appears to be in a good state of preservation on the whole, albeit repainted in a few places in the past. The gentle chiaroscuro modelling of the faces and the exquisite handling of light on the saints’ hair, Sebastian’s loincloth and the cloth tied to Roch’s staff are all clearly visible. The works can be identified as side panels of a polyptych with St Roch and St Sebastian in the Certosa or Carthusian monastery of Pavia, for which Ambrogio Bergognone received payment in the period 1488-89. This is reliably attested by a manuscript in the Brera Library, which makes it possible to reconstruct much of the history of the monastery’s decoration in the last quarter of the 15th century on the basis of no longer extant documentation: “In 1488 and 1489 the painter Ambrosio Fossano produced the altarpiece with the image of the Blessed Virgin Mary and saints Sebastian and Roch, now in the oratory of Vigano, for the price of L. 370.”7 Contrary to what is asserted by most of the scholars, the first to suggest a connection between the works and the source was not Calvi,8 who confines himself to recalling the paintings in the Gallarati Scotti Collection and referring to the passage in the Brera manuscript, but Beltrami in 18959 followed by Tancred Borenius10 in 1912 and Cagnola11 in 1914. The two paintings were probably intended to adorn one of the two altars flanking the entrance to the choir of the monastery church, the demolition of which was requested in the apostolic visit of 1576.12 They were still in the oratory of Vigano in 1785, when they appear in an inventory13 described as a “painting that forms an altarpiece in three parts with the Blessed Virgin and Child in the middle, St Sebastian on the right, St Roch on the left and God the Father in the cornice”. The polyptych was probably moved to Vigano at the end of the 16th century to serve as an altarpiece in the oratory and then, when the monastic order was suppressed, entered the collection built up by Giacomo Melzi d’Eril, largely with works from the Fondo di religione. St Roch and St Sebastian are mentioned there in the inventories of 1802,14 1809 and 1835.15 By 186516 they were part of the Gallarati Scotti Collection, from which they entered the collection of Francesco Federico Cerruti in 1983. 

The central panel of the polyptych has been convincingly identified by Albertini Ottolenghi17 as the Virgin and Child by Il Bergognone now in the National Gallery, London, which has the same style as St Roch and St Sebastian and the same provenance as the Cerruti panels until it entered the British collection in 1879.18 As the scholar rightly points out, decisive confirmation is provided in this connection by the evident derivation of the later polyptych of Cremia (San Michele19) from the central and two side panels of the Certosa altarpiece.
It still remains to identify the God the Father mentioned in the 1785 inventory of the oratory of Vigano. This is probably the one listed by Berenson,20 mentioned as present in the Gallarati Scotti Collection in 1939 by Tola21 and shown with the Cerruti panels in the Leonardo da Vinci exhibition of 1939.22 

The two panels have been associated with the name of Il Bergognone in the literature from the outset, since Calvi (1865) and Beltrami (1895).23 Berenson (1907 and 1936) saw them as displaying the style of the artist in his youth.24 Their presentation in the Leonardo exhibition25 of 1939 was followed by inclusion in Italienische Kunst (Lucerne, 1945)26 and Kunstschätze der Lombardei (Zurich, 1948).27 It is the descriptions in the two catalogues, written on the basis of material provided by Costantino Baroni and Gian Alberto Dell’Acqua, that first suggest a dating of the works in the years of the master’s artistic maturity. Initially rejected by Franco Mazzini28 in his monograph on Il Bergognone, this hypothesis was taken up by Baroni and Samek Ludovici,29 who put forward a dating at the end of the first decade of the 16th century, around the time of the Pentecost polyptych (Bergamo, church of Santo Spirito). Poracchia suggested the early years of the century30 and Wittgens,31 who detected the continuing influence of Vincenzo Foppa in Il Bergognone’s new Leonardesque style, again indicated the end of the first decade. St Roch and St Sebastian also appeared in the major exhibition Arte lombarda dai Visconti agli Sforza (Milan, 1958).32 Now apparently convinced, Franco Mazzini assigned them a date in the catalogue close to the Pentecost and definitively abandoned any connection with the polyptych painted by Il Bergognone for the Certosa between 1488 and 1489. While Poracchia33 followed suit, Berenson’s lists (1968)34 continued to put forward a dating in the artist’s early years, as did Giulio Melzi D’Eril,35 albeit not the period indicated in the Brera manuscript for the Certosa polyptych with St Roch and St Sebastian but rather 1493-94, when Il Bergognone was working there on the frescoes in the semi-domes of the apse. In 1987, while some still endorsed the later dating of the two panels,36 Battaglia and Albertini Ottolenghi37 again connected them with the record of the payment of 1488-89, thus reassembling the Certosa polyptych, as recalled above. Albertini Ottolenghi detects the influence of Foppa’s contemporary St Sebastian for Santa Maria di Brera (Milan, Pinacoteca di Brera) in the St Sebastian, as well as echoes of Mantegna and probably of Bramante’s Christ at the Column. She also sees the Cerruti panels and the contemporary St Peter and St Paul (Pavia, Museo della Certosa) as heralding a new style in Il Bergognone’s work characterised by subtle,
studied execution, an unprecedented modulation of light on surfaces and extremely fluid shaping. The most recent additions to the literature on the paintings - which appeared in 2015 in Arte lombarda dai Visconti agli Sforza,38 an updated reincarnation of the major Milanese exhibition of 1958 - are on the same wavelength.
The two works, which coincide perfectly in style with St Peter and St Paul (Pavia, Museo della Certosa), display evident assimilation of the innovations introduced by Bramante with his Men at Arms series of frescoes and Christ at the Column (respectively 1487 and 1488; Milan, Pinacoteca di Brera). Without these points of reference, it would be hard to understand the many subtle tricks of perspective employed in the two panels: the illusionistic arrows casting shadows on the body of St Sebastian; the foreshortening of the saint’s arms and the reddening of the flesh where they are bound with rope, as in Bramante’s Christ; the perspective view of St Roch’s left hand; and the stereometric faces. The same cultural coordinates are displayed by the original centre panel of the triptych, Virgin and Child with Angel Musicians (London, The National Gallery, fig. 1), which presents, however, forms of greater solidity and greater care in the definition of the drapery. The presence of the inscription “ B[ER]NARDINO” on the hem of Mary’s mantle raises the question of whether Ambrogio’s brother Bernardino was also involved. The issue has been ducked in the literature for decades even though we have been long aware of the close relations between the brothers, who worked together in the Certosa from 1491 to 1497 but also in the late 15th and early 16th century in Lodi, Melegnano and Milan. The documentation gathered together by Shell39 tells us that Bernardino was the younger and that in addition to working with Ambrogio as an equal, at least from 1491 onward, on a basis that has yet to be ascertained, he had commissions of his own.40 

[Stefania Buganza]

1 Levi d’Ancona 1977, p. 51, fig. 8. 

2 Ibid., pp. 44, 113-114, 118-119. 

3 Ibid., 1977, p. 252, nos. 3-4. 

4 Ibid., pp. 105, 124, 325. 

5 Ibid., p. 134, no. 7. 

6 M. G. Albertini Ottolenghi, “Il Bergognone alla Certosa e le ancone quattrocentesche”, in Pavia 1998, p. 181. 

7 Calvi 1865, p. 251; Memorie 1879, pp. 135-136; bat- taglia 1992, pp. 147-148; giaComElli vEdovEl- lo 1998, p. 64. 

8 Calvi 1865, pp. 246-247.

9 Beltrami 1895, p. 57.

10 Crowe-Cavalcaselle [1871] 1912, vol. II, p. 364, note 2.

11 Cagnola 1914, p. 218.

12 Albertini Ottolenghi, “Il Bergognone alla Certo- sa...” cit., p. 180.

13 M. Comincini, “L’ancona dei Santi Rocco e Seba- stiano: un documento inedito”, in pavia 1998.

14 Carotti 1901, p. 169, nos. 34-35.

15 Melzi d’Eril 1971, pp. 138-140; id., 1973, pp. 72- 74.

16 Calvi 1865, p. 251.

17 Albertini Ottolenghi, “Il Bergognone alla Certosa...” cit., pp. 180-81.

18 Melzi d’Eril 1971, pp. 137-138; id., 1973, pp. 67- 69.

19 See D. Pescarmona, “Como, Canton Ticino e Sondrio”, in La pittura in Lombardia 1993, pp. 98, 108. bErEnson 1907, p. 174; id., 1932, p. 99; id., 1936, p. 85; id., 1968, I, p. 44. 

20 Berenson 1907, p. 174; id., 1932, p. 99; id., 1936, p. 85; id., 1968, I, p. 44. 

21 Tola, p. 133, quoted in Albertini Ottolenghi, “Il Bergognone alla Certosa...” cit., p. 189, note 107; the measurements are 55 x 40 cm. 

22 Information given only in the official guide to the Mostra di Leonardo, 1939, p. 33. 

23 Calvi 1865, pp. 246-247; Beltrami1895, p. 57. 

24 Berenson 1907, pp. 99, 667; id., 1936, p. 85. 

25 Milan 1939, p. 187.

26 Lucerne 1945, p. 31.

27 Zurich 1948, p. 243.

28 Mazzini 1948, p. 80.

29 Baroni, Samek Ludovici1952, pp. 212-213.

30 Poracchia 1955, p. 82.

31 F. Wittgens, “La pittura lombarda nella seconda metà del Quattrocento”, in Storia di Milano1953-66, VII, p. 798.

32 Milan 1958, p. 129.

33 Poracchia 1963, pp. 25-27.

34 Berenson 1968, vol. I, p. 44.

35 Melzi d’Eril 1971, pp. 138, 140; id., 1973, pp. 73-74.

36 M. Chirico de Biasi, “Bergognone, Ambrogio”, in Zeri 1987, p. 583.

37 Battaglia 1992, pp. 147-148, note 204; Albertini Ottolenghi, “Il Bergognone alla Certosa...” cit., p. 181.

38 S. Buganza, P. L. Mulas, F. Elsig, “La corte di Ludovico il Moro e il nuovo corso dell’arte lombarda”, in Milan 2015, pp. 303-304; n. righi, in Milan 2015, pp. 366-367. 

39 J. Shell, “Bergognone: una nuova biografia”, in Milan 1989d, pp. 20-28; J. Shell, “Regesto”, in Pavia 1998, pp. 427-436. 

40 Buganza 1997, p. 118; S. Buganza, in Milan 2014-15, p. 91, note 65; M. Albertario, in Valagussa 2018, pp. 180-183; M. Albertario, “Francesco Eustachi e la pala di Sant’Epifanio. Ipotesi per un committente pavese di Bergognone”, in Mulas 2019, pp. 219-229.