St. Bartholomew

Together with its companion piece representing St Andrew, this painting in oil on wood was sold to the Accademia di San Luca in 1821 by the neoclassical painter and antiquarian Vincenzo Camuccini. The painting was historically attributed either to Alessandro Allori or to his master Bronzino, but cleaning and conservation work performed in 1985-1987 confirmed it to be the work of Bronzino. The scientifically accurate representation of the flayed saint’s musculature appears to have been inspired by Andreas Vesalius’s De Humani Corporis Fabrica Libri Septem, published in Basle in 1543.
[F. Biferali]