03 Works, RELIGIOUS ART - The Ten Holy Martyrs of Crete's Day, With Footnotes - 157

The Ten Holy Martyrs of Crete

The Ten Holy Martyrs of Crete: Theodulus, Saturninus, Euporus, Gelasius, Eunician, Zoticus, Pompius, Agathopus, Basilides and Evaristus were a group of ten Christian men from Crete who suffered martyrdom during the persecutions of emperor Decius during the third century. They are commemorated on December 23.

The Ten refused to worship at the shrine of the deity of the emperor Decius as god of Rome. They were brought before the governor of Crete, also named Decius. At their trial they steadfastly confessed their faith in Christ and refused to worship the emperor and other idols.

The men were then imprisoned and tortured for one month. But the torture did not change their opinions, and they continued to glorifying God. They were sentenced by the governor of Crete to be beheaded. Before their death they prayed that the Lord would enlighten their torturers with the light of the true Faith. Their executions took place in Alonion, a part of Gortyn now known to have been the main amphitheater of Gortyn.

The Ten Holy Martyrs of Crete

Menologion of Basil II, 10th-11th c.

During the reign of emperor Constantine I, the bodies of the ten saints were reburied. The site of the reburial is reported differently. In one, St. Paul of Constantinople is said to have taken the relics of the holy martyrs to Constantinople to serve as a protection for the city, and a source of blessings for the faithful. Another relates to a 1981 discovery of a sarcophagi during rescue excavation in Alonion of Gortyn as the burial site. The Ten Holy Martyrs of Crete

The Ten Holy Martyrs of Crete

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02 Works, CONTEMPORARY & 20th Century Interpretation of Greek mythology With Footnotes - 23

Thomas Saliot, France

Three Graces by the pool

Oil on canvas

Size: 63 H x 49.2 W x 0.4 in

Private collection

Thomas Saliot: "one of my last painting in my Marrakech studio, summer vibes with a nice composition. Lots of work....'

In Greek mythology, a Charis or Grace is one of three or more minor goddesses of charm, beauty, nature, human creativity, and fertility, together known as the Charites or Graces. The usual list, from youngest to oldest is Aglaea ("Splendor"), Euphrosyne ("Mirth"), and Thalia ("Good Cheer"). In Roman mythology they were known as the Gratiae, the "Graces". In some variants, Charis was one of the Graces and was not the singular form of their name.

The Charites were usually considered the daughters of Zeus and Eurynome, though they were also said to be daughters of Dionysus and Aphrodite or of Helios and the naiad Aegle. Other possible names of their mother by Zeus are Eurydome, Eurymedousa, and Euanthe. Homer wrote that they were part of the retinue of Aphrodite. The Charites were also associated with the Greek underworld and the Eleusinian Mysteries.

The river Cephissus near Delphi was sacred to them. More Three Graces (aka the Charities)

Thomas Saliot, France

Three graces plus one

Oil on canvas

118.1 H x 82.7 W x 2 in

Private collection

Thomas Saliot: "I live in Morocco, France and Spain where i paint simple iconic images from the net or my life, like big oil sketches. I have been painting professionally for over thirty years. Sort of a child of Hopper, figurative and Pop art, i love colors, provocation and big canvas.

Thomas Saliot was born in Paris, France, in 1968. He studied Graphic Design at the Met de Penninghen (Esag) for 3 years and opened his own gallery in le Marais in the historic district of Paris from 1990 to 2000. For the past 20 years he has been living the life, painting and travelling between Marrakech, Morocco and his home city of Paris, France.  More on Thomas Saliot

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01 Works, RELIGIOUS ART - Today, December 20, is Thomas the Apostle 's Day, With Footnotes - 156

Caravaggio, (1571–1610) 

The Incredulity of Saint Thomas, Jesus Christ & Thomas the Apostle

circa 1601 until 1602

Oil on canvas

Height: 42.1 ″ (106.9 cm); Width: 57.5 ″ (146 cm)

Sanssouci Picture Gallery, Germany

The Incredulity of Saint Thomas is a painting of the subject of the same name by the Italian Baroque master Caravaggio, c. 1601–1602. It is housed in the Sanssouci Picture Gallery, now a museum, in Potsdam, Germany. 


It shows the episode that gave rise to the term "Doubting Thomas" which, formally known as the Incredulity of Thomas, had been frequently represented in Christian art since at least the 5th century, and used to make a variety of theological points. According to St John's Gospel, Thomas the Apostle missed one of Jesus's appearances to the Apostles after His resurrection, and said "Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it." John 20:25[1] A week later Jesus appeared and told Thomas to touch Him and stop doubting. Then Jesus said, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." John 20:29 More on The Incredulity of Saint Thomas 

Thomas the Apostle, also called Didymus which means "the twin", was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus, according to the New Testament.

Thomas is informally referred to as "Doubting Thomas" because he doubted Jesus' resurrection when first told, followed later by his confession of faith, "My Lord and my God," on seeing Jesus' wounded body.

Traditionally, Thomas is believed to have travelled outside the Roman Empire to preach the Gospel, travelling as far as Tamilakam which are the states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala in present-day India. According to tradition, Thomas reached Muziris,in the state of Kerala, India in AD 50, and baptized several people, founding what today are known as Saint Thomas Christians or Mar Thoma Nazranis. After his death, the reputed relics of Saint Thomas the Apostle were enshrined as far as Mesopotamia in the 3rd century, and later moved to various places. In 1258, some of the relics were brought to Abruzzo in Ortona, Italy, where they have been held in the Church of Saint Thomas the Apostle. He is often regarded as the Patron Saint of India, and the name Thoma remains quite popular among Saint Thomas Christians of India. More on Thomas the Apostle

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (29 September 1571 in Caravaggio – 18 July 1610) was an Italian painter active in Rome, Naples, Malta, and Sicily between 1592 and 1610. His paintings, which combine a realistic observation of the human state, both physical and emotional, with a dramatic use of lighting, had a formative influence on Baroque painting.

Caravaggio trained as a painter in Milan under Simone Peterzano who had himself trained under Titian. In his twenties Caravaggio moved to Rome where there was a demand for paintings to fill the many huge new churches and palazzos being built at the time. It was also a period when the Church was searching for a stylistic alternative to Mannerism in religious. Caravaggio's innovation was a radical naturalism that combined close physical observation with a dramatic use of chiaroscuro which came to be known as tenebrism (the shift from light to dark with little intermediate value).

He gained attention in the art scene of Rome in 1600 with the success of his first public commissions, the Martyrdom of Saint Matthew and Calling of Saint Matthew. Thereafter he never lacked commissions or patrons, yet he handled his success poorly. He was jailed on several occasions, vandalized his own apartment, and ultimately had a death sentence pronounced against him by the Pope after killing a young man, possibly unintentionally, on May 29, 1606. He fled from Rome with a price on his head. He was involved in a brawl in Malta in 1608, and another in Naples in 1609. This encounter left him severely injured. A year later, at the age of 38, he died under mysterious circumstances in Porto Ercole in Tuscany, reportedly from a fever while on his way to Rome to receive a pardon.

Famous while he lived, Caravaggio was forgotten almost immediately after his death, and it was only in the 20th century that his importance to the development of Western art was rediscovered. More on Caravaggio

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03 Works, RELIGIOUS ART - Today, December 20, is Saint St. Dominic de Silos 's Day, With Footnotes - 150

Bartolomé Bermejo, (1440–1500)

Santo Domingo de Silos enthroned as bishop, between circa 1474 and circa 1477

Oil on panel

Height: 242 cm (95.2 ″); Width: 130 cm (51.1 ″)

Museo del Prado

Dominic of Silos, O.S.B., (Spanish: Santo Domingo de Silos) (1000 – December 20, 1073) was born at Canas de Navarre, on the Spanish side of the Pyrenees. From a family of peasants, at first he looked after his father’s flocks in the foothills of the beautiful mountains of that region.

Developing a taste for silence and solitude, he entered the monastery of San Millán de la Cogolla. As he made great progress in the religious state, he was entrusted with works of reform and became prior of his monastery.

Refusing to hand over to King Garcia III of Navarre some of the monastery’s lands which the monarch coveted, he and two of his companions were forced into exile by the king. They were warmly received by Ferdinand I of Castille and León who entrusted to Dominic the monastery of San Sebastián de Silos, in a remote part of the diocese of Burgos.

Bartolomé Bermejo, (1440–1500)

Ferdinand I of Castile welcoming Saint Dominic of Silos, between circa 1478 & 1479

Oil on panel

Height: 145 cm (57 ″); Width: 94 cm (37 ″)

Museo del Prado

The ancient Benedictine monastery, however, was decaying – structurally and spiritually. As Abbot of San Sebastian, Dominic restored order to both the physical structure of the edifice and the spiritual edifice of the souls within, and made Silos famous throughout Spain.

Dominic was a great miracle worker, and it was said that there was no disease that he had not, at one time or another, cured.

His charitable solicitude embraced not only the poor and the infirm but Christians enslaved by the Moors. These he endeavored by all means within his powers to free from their cruel captivity.

Saint Dominic Of Silos

About one hundred year after his death, a young woman, Blessed Juana de Aza de Guzmán, made a pilgrimage to his tomb, asking to conceive a child. The child she effectually conceived and bore, she named Dominic after the holy abbot of Silos. This Dominic became the great St. Dominic de Guzmán, founder of the Dominican Order.

Dominic of Silos died on December 20, 1073. More on Dominic of Silos

Bartolomé Bermejo (c. 1440 – c.1501) was a Spanish painter who adopted Flemish painting techniques and conventions. Although it is unclear where Bermejo received his training, his complete mastery of the oil glaze technique suggests direct contact with 15th century Flemish painting, which he was able to adapt perfectly to the demands of Spanish altarpieces of the period: large-scale retables with many panels. Though his documented career spans over thirty years, he was peripatetic: he never settled in one place for more than a decade. Also, in a period and place where painting was a business, and work was generally negotiated by contract, there is both direct and indirect evidence that he was professionally unreliable, though apparently his outstanding talent made patrons willing to take the risk. At least three major altarpieces that he undertook, the high altar retables of Santo Domingo de Silos in Daroca and Santa Anna in Barcelona, and the triptych of the Virgin of Montserrat in Valencia, were left incomplete for others to finish.

Documentation places his activity in four cities of the Crown of Aragon: Valencia (1468), Daroca (1474), Zaragoza (1477–84) and Barcelona [1486–1501). More on Bartolomé Bermejo

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02 Works, RELIGIOUS ART - Today, December 19, is Saints Marius, Martha, Audifax, and Abachum's Day, With Footnotes - 149

Corrado Giaquinto

Martyrdom of Saints Marius, Martha, Audifax and Abacus, circa 1750 

Oil on canvas 

Height: 118 cm (46.46 in.), Width: 167 cm (65.75 in.) 

Musee Fesch - Ajaccio (France)

Saints Marius, Martha, Audifax, and Abachum (died 270) were, according to their largely legendary passio of the 6th century, four saints of the same family (a husband, his wife, and their two sons). They came from Persia to Rome, and were martyred in 270 for sympathizing with Christian martyrs and burying their bodies. Some ancient martyrologies place the date of their death between 268 and 270, during the reign of Claudius II, although there was no persecution of Christians during this time.

Their story relates how the family's assistance to Christians exposed them to persecution. They were seized and delivered to the judge Muscianus or Marcianus, who, unable to persuade them to abjure their faith, condemned them to various tortures. Despite the torture, the saints refused to abjure. Marius and his two sons were thus beheaded on the Via Cornelia, and their bodies were burnt. Martha meanwhile was killed at a place called in Nimpha or Nymphae Catabassi, thirteen miles from Rome. Tradition states that Martha was cast into a well. More on Saints Marius, Martha, Audifax, and Abachum

Corrado Giaquinto was an Italian painter. He was apprenticed to Nicola Maria Rossi, then to Solimena. His spiritual master, however, was undoubtedly Luca Giordano. By the 1740s Giaquinto was the leading exponent of the Rococo school that flourished in Rome during the first half of the 18th century. Later he established himself as Europe's foremost fresco painter after Giambattista Tiepolo.

From 1753 to 1762, Giaquinto moved to Madrid where he achieved great academic honours as well as professional ones. In 1755 he frescoed the Royal Chapel in the Royal Palace, painted seven canvases for the Palace of Aranjuez, supplied further canvases for the Salesian convent in Madrid, and finally painted the famous frescoes in the Royal Palace depicting The Birth of the Sun in the Hall of the Columns, and Spain Saluting Religion and the Church on the staircase. Giaquinto had great influence on Spanish painters, particularly the young Goya.

In 1762 he returned to Naples where his work influenced Neapolitan artists. More on Corrado Giaquinto

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02 Works, RELIGIOUS ART - Today, December 18, is Saint Sulpitius the Pious's Day, With Footnotes - 148

Saint Sulpitius

Sulpitius (or Sulpicius) the Pious (died 17 January 644) was a 7th-century bishop of Bourges and a saint.

Sulpitius was born at Vatan (Diocese of Bourges), of noble parents, before the end of the sixth century. From his youth he devoted himself to good works and to the study of Scripture, and donated his large patrimony to the church and the poor.

The Bishop of Bourges ordained him cleric of his church, then deacon, and finally made him director of his episcopal school. Clotaire II, King of the Franks, who had heard of his merits, made him almoner and chaplain of his armies. Upon the death of the Bishop, Sulpicious was recalled to Bourges to succeed him. 

Saint Sulpitius

Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana

As bishop, Sulpício, besides placing the Church as the basis of the political consolidation of the country, structured a solid religious and human formation of the clergy, through the monastic life that he implanted, to guarantee the safest way of evangelization of the people.

Sulpitius gave leave for no-one, neither heretic, gentile or Jew, to live in the city of Bourges without the grace of baptism" - with many consequent conversions from the Jews of Bourges.

Sulpitius intervened with King Dagobert on behalf of his flock, of whom a too heavy tax was exacted. When the people came complaining of their treatment to Sulpicius, he decreed a three-day fast for clergy and laity, but also sent one of his clergy, Ebargisilus by name, to the king.

Sulpitius retired to a monastery which he had founded near Bourges. There he died on 17 January 646, which day several manuscripts of the Hieronymian Martyrology indicate as his feast. The reports of miracles at his tomb in the basilica he had ordered built began soon after his death and the place became a place of pilgrimage. More on Sulpitius

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01 Works, RELIGIOUS ART - Today, December 16, is Pope Marcellus I's Day, With Footnotes - 148

Pope Marcellus I

Pope Marcellus I (6 January 255–16 January 309) was the Bishop of Rome or Pope from May or June 308 to his death in 309. He succeeded Pope Marcellinus after a considerable interval. Under Maxentius, he was banished from Rome in 309, on account of the tumult caused by the severity of the penances he had imposed on Christians who had lapsed under the recent persecution. He died the same year, being succeeded by Pope Eusebius. His relics are under the altar of San Marcello al Corso in Rome. His third-class feast day is kept on January 16.

Marcellus found the Church in the greatest confusion. The meeting-places and some of the burial-places of the faithful had been confiscated, and the ordinary life and activity of the Church was interrupted. Added to this were the dissensions within the Church itself, caused by the large number of weaker members who had fallen away during the long period of active persecution and later, under the leadership of an apostate, violently demanded that they should be readmitted to communion without doing penance

Marcellus was looked upon as a wicked enemy by all the lapsed, because he insisted that they should perform the prescribed penance for their guilt. As a result, serious conflicts arose, some of which ended in bloodshed. The tyrannical Maxentius had the pope seized and sent into exile. Marcellus died shortly after leaving Rome, and was venerated as a saint.

He was buried in the catacomb of St. Priscilla where his grave is mentioned by the itineraries to the graves of the Roman martyrs as existing in the basilica of St. Silvester (De Rossi, Roma sotterranea, I, 176). More on Pope Marcellus I

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