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Apparition of the Angel to Saint Roch
Gaspar Diasc.1584
Museu de São Roque
Lisboa, Portugal
The painting, "The Apparition of the Angel to St. Roch", dates from the end of the 16th century, and is considered one of the best works by Gaspar Dias (act.1560-1590). The panel represents St. Roch stunned by the sudden apparition of the guardian Angel. Beside him a protecting dog brings food to the saint. The background scenery features an architectural composition inspired on Italian paintings of the late Renaissance. On the top of the retable, the oil painting represents the death of St. Roch in the prison, which is attributed to Gaspar Dias.
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Details
- Title: Apparition of the Angel to Saint Roch
- Creator Lifespan: Born in the first half ot the 16th century - 1590
- Creator Nationality: Portuguese
- Creator Gender: Male
- Creator Death Place: 1590
- Creator Birth Place: act. 1560
- Date: c.1584
- Physical Dimensions: w300 x h350 x dcm Total
- Provenance: Museu de São Roque/Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Lisboa
- Type: Painting
- Rights: Museu de São Roque/Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Lisboa
- External Link: Museu de São Roque/Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Lisboa
- Medium: Oil on wood
- Painter: Gaspar Dias
- Manufactured: Lisbon, Portugal
- Biography of the saint: According to the chroniclers of Saint Roch, he would have been born around 1350, in Montpellier, with a birthmark in the shape of a red cross on his chest and became an orphan while still young. Deciding to follow a life of pilgrimage, the young man distributed his fortune to the poor and left in the direction of Rome, where he would have stayed between 1367 and 1371, heading afterwards to the Apennine Mountains. In Acquapendente, an Italian commune in the Lazio region, Saint Roch, confronted by an outbreak of the plague, would have dedicated himself to the victims of the terrible disease, managing to cure some of them with the simple administration of the sign of the cross. Infected with the disease, the saint, who miraculously avoided what was going to happen to him, would have hidden himself away in a forest where he was cured by an angel, who applied a miraculous balm on his wounds, and was fed by a dog, who took him bread everyday. Cured, Saint Roch would have returned to his birthplace where he was unjustly accused of espionage and arrested, dying in prison according to some versions of the legend, while other more reliable sources say that he would have died in Angera, in Lombardy in 1379. The cult of Saint Roch left France and Italy in the 15th century spreading rapidly throughout Europe, including Portugal, which is explained by the recurring epidemics of the plague that marked the history of the old continent until the 16th century. At the end of the 15th century Saint Roch was included in the Martyrology, by Pope Gregory XIII, and at the end of the 17th century was canonised by Pope Urban VIII.
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