Ludovico Carracci (ambito di) Lot n° 22

Ludovico Carracci (sphere of) The Vision of Saint Hyacinth Oil on canvas Canvas cm. 115x86.5. Framed Ludovico Carracci (sphere of) This intense painting is a remarkable testimony to the phase of transition of Italian and specifically Bolognese painting, at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries, from a late Mannerist pictorial language towards figurative codes of more vivid naturalism and more genuine expression of human emotions and passions, through a direct approach to the models of natural reality. Absolute protagonists of this transition were Annibale and Ludovico Carracci: and the latter would be said to be the closest reference of the author of our painting, particularly his famous masterpiece, now in the Louvre, in which the same episode of the vision of St. Hyacinth is depicted. According to hagiography it occurred when Hyacinth, of Polish origin, was forced to leave Kiev during the attack of the Tartars and had an apparition of Our Lady, who begged him to save a statue of her and promised her protection.