Of course there is a question of which of the three paintings with hands bound above the head and the five versions of St. Sebastian with his hands tied behind his back are by the master--Guido Reni. During the apogee of his career Guido was highly sought after. His popularity plus his gambling debts necessitated the constant production of work. Reni had an established bottega in Bologna, and he, like many important artists before and after, employed assistants to aid him in his work. As other notable artists, Reni would most probably have assigned minor parts of a painting to different assistants, leaving the most important part of the composition for his own hand. This would have allowed the reproduction of popular compositions--a state of affairs that most patrons of the time would have understood.

Guido portrays all the faces of St. Sebastian's in an idealized manner--i.e., the jaw line is rather soft, the chin is rounded and traditionally described as plum-like, the face is smooth, the lips are full and the mouth of average proportion (neither small nor large), the nose is straight with a perceptible bridge and well formed, the eyes are somewhat larger than the other proportions would indicate, and the hair is dark, shoulder length and curly. The faces of Guido's St. Sebastians may be characterized as comely rather than handsome, attractive rather than masculine as they all border on being lovely. Their chins are all tilted upwards and turned to either the right or left. And, their eyes are in a word, hypnotic as they too are turned upward. Guido stated that he could paint eyes in ecstasy in scores of ways, and this he exhibited in his renditions of the martyr-saint.

The bodies of Guido's St. Sebastians are physically unremarkable, and in that may lie their charm and/or appeal. They are neither adolescent nor mature, neither undeveloped nor heavily muscled. But, they are not androgynous! They exist in an ethereal region beyond our experience and provide an apt counterpoint to the enraptured, upturned faces that rest on their broad shoulders. The arrows that invade the body of the martyr-saint do not intrude into the broad expanse of the painted chest, or the flat bellies, rather they pierce St. Sebastian along the periphery of the body, a visual footnote, a non-intrusive reminder. In Reni's St. Sebastians, one does not encounter pain or blood or reality! We are presented with a tableau of restraint, glazing over passion, the passion of agony, the passion of impending death, the passion of the spirit. Yet, this restraint seems to mask a very real, underlying sensuality. The restraint approaching masochism as seen in Reni's Sebastians obviously struck a deep, resonant cord in the centuries that followed, particularly in the Victorian men of the late XIX^th Century.

St. Sebastian and Other Saints

St. Sebastian and St. Theresa of Avila

The agony of St. Sebastian is clearly spiritually related to the ecstasy of St. Theresa of Avila. Although St. Theresa's ecstasy was purportedly spiritual in nature, a different interpretation may be gleaned from Chapter XXIX, Part 17, of her autobiography. Her experience seems patently sensuous, even erotic if one is not aware of the circumstances. "I saw in his hand a long spear of gold, and at the iron's point there seemed to be a little fire. He appeared to me to be thrusting it at times into my heart, and to pierce my very entrails; when he drew it out, he seemed to draw them out also, and to leave me all on fire with a great love of God. The pain was so great, that it made me moan; and yet so surpassing was the sweetness of this excessive pain, that I could not wish to be rid of it. The soul is satisfied now with nothing less than God. The pain is not bodily, but spiritual; though the body has its share in it. It is a caressing of love so sweet which now takes place between the soul and God, that I pray God of His goodness to make him experience it who may think that I am lying." One may wonder, and with some veracity, if it was not an incubus who St. Theresa was writing about.

The incredibly theatrical ensemble of Gianlorenzo Bernini (1645-1652) in the Cornaro Chapel of Santa Maria della Victoria presents an interpretation of the saint's words. Not only does St. Theresa's face identically mirror many of those painted of St. Sebastian, the angel presents a visage that borders on leering as he holds an arrow, not a spear! If one follows the trajectory of the arrow, not unexpectedly, it traces a path that ultimately leads to St. Theresa's nether regions. Unwittingly or not, Bernini sculpts a three dimensional image of ecstasy with a questionable etiology. Is it spiritual, or is it physical passion? Nevertheless, whether spiritual or physical, whether male or female, whether IV^th or XVI^th Century, there is an undeniable connection between the two spiralling around the content of their being.

St. Sebastian & St. Irene

St. Irene was never an extremely popular martyr-saint in her own right. If it were not for her association with St. Sebastian, she would have sunk into saintly oblivion along with her martyr-saint sisters St. Agape and St. Chionia. However, the appearance of St. Irene, the widow of St. Castulus, healing St. Sebastian becomes a popular subject in the XVII^th Century and elevates this otherwise unremarkable martyr-saint into the mid-regions of saintly popularity.

St. Irene’s sisters St. Agape and St. Chionia had both been martyred for being unrepentant Christians. Irene seemed to have been spared as she was the wife of an important imperial functionary. Like her sisters, her husband was executed for being a Christian. Irene, the then widow of the former Imperial Chamberlain St. Castulus, was accused of being a Christian and condemned unless she recanted.

She refused. Like St. Sebastian, her martyrdom is in two parts and includes a miracle-of-sorts. She was condemned to be chained, nude in a soldier’s brothel for their carnal pleasure. She miraculously remained untouched, inviolate in her exposed state. Since she remained untouched, she was then taken out and executed. One tale recounts that she was burned. However, another tale is more interesting--she died with an arrow through her throat! She, thereby, is inextricably iconographically connected to St. Sebastian.

The XVII^th also saw sporadic reoccurrence of "the plague" throughout Europe and with considerably less virulence each time it appeared. Also, the survival rate increased, particularly where proper care was given. Therefore, the succoring of St. Sebastian by St. Irene had some parallel in reality. Nonetheless, the appearance of the plague sent the chill of doom through the populous of Europe every time it occurred. The relict was too horrendous to be cast aside and any incident in the annals of Church history or myth was quickly adopted or re-adopted. St. Sebastian healed by St. Irene was an obvious touchstone.

When viewing a number of paintings before, during and after this period--i.e., XVII^th--which indicate St. Sebastian pierced by arrows, the fact of a truly miraculous healing is called into question. This is especially true when one encounters the martyr-saint with arrows piercing his head and region in and around the heart, not to mention those representations in which he is literally riddled with arrows; a human pin cushion or a hedgehog. Many of the paintings refer to St. Irene as "succoring" or "healing" the martyr-saint. This would imply the application of a curative process rather than a miraculous cure. Indeed, many of the paintings of the ministration of St. Irene indicates St. Sebastian with two or three arrows piercing his flesh. However, a miraculous cure would be particularly evident when associated with the representations of Joan Reixac (1468) (See: Figure 227) where approximately twenty-five arrows regularly puncture his body or Vincent of Kastav (1474) (See: Figure 228) who paints the martyr-saint with near thirty arrows protruding from his body. In both cases, the martyr-saint resembles a porcupine or pin cushion!