01 Works, RELIGIOUS ART - Today, January 4, is Saint Dafrosa's Day, With Footnotes - 163

Pietro da Cortona

St. Dafrosa of Acquapendente, c. 1640

Oil on canvas

Height: 187 cm (73.6 ″); Width: 119 cm (46.8 ″)

Musée Comtadin-Duplessis, Carpentras

St. Dafrosa of Acquapendente was married to Saint Flavian; mother of Saint Bibiana and Saint Demetria. Martyred in the persecutions of Julian the Apostate. 

She left her home in Seville to emigrate to the head of the Empire with her family in search of a better life.  Her husband, Flaviano, died a martyr in Rome. Being married to a Christian she was condemned to exile. On her return, Aproniano, a Roman senator, imprisons her as he planed to re-marry her with a man named Fausto, hoping that she might re-think her faith. Instead, Dafrosa instructed Fausto in the Christian faith, she baptized him. He ended up dying a martyr as well. As his body was exposed to the dogs, Dafrosa retrieved him and gave him a Christian burial. This led her to martyrdom on 4 January 362 in the persecutions of Julian the Apostate. She was decapitated. More on St. Dafrosa of Acquapendente

Pietro da Cortona (1 November 1596/7 – 16 May 1669) was born Pietro Berrettini, but is primarily known by the name of his native town of Cortona in Tuscany. He was the leading Italian Baroque painter of his time and, along with his contemporaries and rivals Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Francesco Borromini, was one of the key figures in the emergence of Roman Baroque architecture. He was also an important designer of interior decorations.

Cortona worked mainly in Rome and Florence. He is best known for his frescoed ceilings such as the vault of the salone or main salon of the Palazzo Barberini in Rome and carried out extensive painting and decorative schemes for the Medici family in Florence and for the Oratorian fathers at the church of Santa Maria in Vallicella in Rome. He also painted numerous canvases. Only a limited number of his architectural projects were built but nonetheless they are as distinctive and as inventive as those of his rivals. More on Pietro da Cortona

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