Saint Vincent with the model of the city of Vicenza

The picture was painted by Francesco Maffei in the second half of the third decade of the seventeenth century. It is the work of a young artist still strongly influenced by the painting of the Maganza family, but who has already begun to develop a personal style of his own, characterised by a flowing brushstroke and by delicate colours, lit by flashes of light.

Saint Vincent, patron saint of the city of Vicenza, is shown here according to a particularly popular iconography: he is presented as a militant saint, stepping forward with a sure and determined air, carrying the standard of the city. In his hands the saint holds a model of Vicenza (in which we can recognise the most important buildings), which recalls a similar model in wood, coated with silver, given as a votive offering to the sanctuary of Monte Berico after the plague of 1576-1577 and destroyed in a fire in 1897. The inscription at the bottom of the painting shows the following Latin words: Aeris publici administratores/ rationes reddunto/ idq. Octumviri ex lege curanto and refers to the Octumvirs, that is to the eight city magistrates assigned to carry out important tasks.

The subject of the painting and the words of the inscription lead us to think that the work was intended for public use and it has been suggested that the picture may originally have hung in the Chamber of Deputies in the Palazzo del Podestà in Vicenza.