Venice, Nicola Samorì replaces Vittore Carpaccio and creates a work for San Giorgio Maggiore

On the occasion of the loan of Vittore Carpaccio ’s famous altarpiece depicting St. George Slaying the Dragon, the Benedictine Community of San Giorgio Maggiore commissioned a new painting to temporarily replace it, pending the return of the 16th-century masterpiece. The work, created by renowned Romagnolo artist Nicola Samorì, bears the title “First Martyr” and is part of an innovative artistic reflection that reinterprets the monastery’s iconographic heritage.

Carpaccio’s painting, in addition to the central scene of the knight annihilating the dragon, presents a significant episode in the background: the stoning of St. Stephen, co-owner of the monastery along with St. George. It is precisely from this joint representation of the two saints that Samorì draws inspiration for his work, transforming the concept of “martyrdom” into a deeper and more personal reflection.

It is precisely from the joint representation of these two saints that Primo Martire originates: "In the painting I made for theAbbey of San Giorgio Maggiore,“ declares the Artist, ”I intended to bring the martyrdom of St. Stephen to the foreground, reversing the proportions readable in Carpaccio’s work: it is the First Martyr who giganteggiare, while St. George becomes a kind of blazon, imprinted on the mantle of Stephen, in an inverse temporality, as if the Martyr dressed the future."

Drawing iconographic inspiration from the Stoning of St. Stephen painted by Pier Francesco Cittadini in 1637 for the Basilica of St. Stephen in Bologna, Samorì materially beat the effigy of the saint-a known victim of stoning, and for that reason traditionally depicted in co-presence with stones-through the pressure of stones on the canvas. “The stoning took place physically on the body of the painting, opening gashes in the still-soft oil modeling,” says Samorì: “my transcription of the ancient model is quite faithful, but the texture of the painting is disrupted by incursions that precipitate the Baroque code toward the gesturality of the informal.”Samorì’s creation is thus not limited to a visual contribution, but also becomes a physical act of transforming the canvas. In fact, the artist chose to materially beat the effigy of St. Stephen, a stoned martyr, using stones to “etch” the pictorial surface. The work thus results in an encounter between iconographic tradition and a new expressive vision that, through the gestural force of painting, conveys the intensity of martyrdom and the torment of a Saint who never ceased to be a symbol of resistance and faith.

Complementing the exhibition project, alongside Nicola Samorì’s painting will be a real stone painting: a thin slab of breccia from Vendôme, France. The slab, which looks like a book-like opening, is presented as if it were a fossilization of the explosion of stones reaching Stephen’s body, symbolizing the violence and sacredness of the event. In parallel, Samorì is making a contemporary illuminated manuscript, produced in the traditional Book Restoration Workshop at Praglia Abbey. The manuscript will be enriched by the artist and will flow into the collection of contemporary illuminated manuscripts donated to the Benedictine Community of San Giorgio Maggiore. A continuity between the past and the present that becomes visible through art, keeping tradition alive and at the same time opening new avenues for artistic creation.

The exhibition will be on view from December 22, 2024 to March 3, 2025 in the Night Choir of the Abbey of St. George Major, a private area now better known as the Conclave Chapel. This area has a singular history, having been the site that hosted in the year 1800 the assembly of cardinals that elected Pope Pius VII (born Gregory Barnabas Chiaramonti, a Benedictine Cassinese monk and then Bishop of Imola) to the papal throne.

The environment of the Conclave Chapel, with its sacredness and its connection to history, becomes the perfect setting to welcome this contemporary work that dialogues with the history of the monastery, creating a profound link between spirituality, art and the millennial past of the place.

The exhibition project not only celebrates the figure of St. Stephen and the link with St. George, but also becomes an act of reflection on the temporality of art and its ability to transcend the boundaries of time, carrying on the dialogue between the past and the present. Samorì’s work, with its strong physical and conceptual component, invites the viewer to confront the profound meaning of martyrdom, faith and the struggle to affirm one’s existence. A unique opportunity to immerse oneself in a world that is not only visual, but also emotional and spiritual.

For all information, you can email abbazia@abbaziasangiorgio.it.

Venice, Nicola Samorì replaces Vittore Carpaccio and creates a work for San Giorgio Maggiore

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