As Pope Leo XIV is today publicly installed into the Petrine Ministry, receiving the Pallium and The Fisherman’s Ring at the beginning of his Pontificate, the sense of responsibility must be truly terrifying. I thought I would therefore share this image by my beloved Zurbarán of Saint Peter appearing to the Mercedarian Saint Peter Nolasco.
According to Friar Alonso Remón’s 16th century history of the Mercedarians, Peter Nolasco was very eager to go to Rome to visit Saint Peter’s tomb, and his patron saint appeared to him on three consecutive nights to console him for not being able to go. On the third night, as he was praying, Saint Peter appeared to him, crucified upside down, and urged him to remain in Spain, where he had much to do.
In this image Zurbarán produces a spectacular meeting of the divine and earthly spheres -one vibrant with incandescent light, and the other, intense and physically realistic. Zurbarán show no details of the ecclesiastical setting: the saint and his vision are enveloped in profound darkness and abstracted from all material surroundings. The two Peters contemplate each other fixed in a spiritual communion that transcends time and space. A gift we pray will be given to Pope Leo.
🎨 Francisco de Zurbarán, The Apparition of Saint Peter to Saint Peter Nolasco, 1629. The Prado, Madrid.
The Arts of Golden Age Spain and the Hispanic World 