Tapestry based on Raphael cartoon: Sacrifice at Lystra

This is one of three large tapestries in Glencairn’s collection based on a set of designs painted by the Renaissance artist Raphael (1483-1520). Raphael’s ten original paintings or “cartoons” were commissioned by Pope Leo X to make tapestries to hang on the lower portion of the walls of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican Palace. The scene illustrated in this tapestry represents the story of the sacrifice at Lystra, from the Acts of the Apostles (14:8-18). Paul and Barnabas, having cured a disabled man at Lystra (a city in present-day Turkey), were thought by the crowd to be the gods Mercury and Jupiter. The two men narrowly averted a sacrifice to those gods by convincing the Lystrians that they were only mortals. The Apostles stand at the right near an altar, while a man with a raised axe prepares to slaughter an ox. Another man approaches from the right with a ram. The people of Lystra crowd in from the left. (See External Link.)

Sources:
- Jack Hinton, “History Repeating: The Story of Glencairn Museum’s Acts of the Apostles Tapestries,” _Glencairn Museum News_, Number 2, 2023.