The Boston Globe, March 28th, 2004
Ask most people with a passing interest in iconography about the martyrdom of St. Sebastian, and they'll refer to the flood of paintings of him shot through with arrows. They quite naturally conclude that he died from being skewered by soldiers dispatched by the Roman emperor Diocletian. He didn't. The Museum of Fine Arts' Bernardo Strozzi painting "Saint Sebastian Tended by Saint Irene and Her Maid" shows the two women removing the arrows as delicately as if they were acupuncture needles. Sebastian not only survived the attack, but went back to Diocletian to brag about it. Dumb move. The angr...
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