SAN SEBASTIAN BY ANDREA MANTEGNA

San Sebastian by Andrea Mantegna is the work of art that is the museum's symbol. Baron Franchetti especially loved this refined work that is crossed by a painful and melancholy vein. To display it as it deserved, he had a marble and gilded wood recess made specifically for it; all the subsequent productions of the Gallery followed this setup. Mantegna depicts the saint pierced by many thin arrows; if you closely observe his body, you'll notice how Renaissance painting progressed towards an almost scientific conquest of human anatomy.

FUN FACT: if you look carefully at the bottom right of Andrea Mantegna's work, you can read a Latin inscription that reminds us that the artist painted it at an old age. The inscription says: "Nothing is permanent except God: the rest is smoke".