Ercole Procaccini the Elder

(Bologna 1515/1520–1595 Milan)
The Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine,
oil on panel, 79 x 59 cm, framed
Literature:
A. Mazza, La collezione Michelangelo Poletti nel castello di San Martino in Soverzano. Dipinti emiliani e di confine (secoli XV–XVIII), vol. I, Bologna 2021, p. 136, fig. 2

The present painting depicts the conversion to Christianity of the princess-saint Catherine of Alexandria. The Christ Child, supported by the Madonna, is pictured in the act of placing the ring onto the martyr-saint’s finger, making her his bride; she is seen kneeling to the left. This work, by the Bolognese painter Ercole Procaccini, is referred to the years after the artist’s sojourn in Parma. A painting of the same subject is conserved in the Gallerie Estensi, Modena (inv. no. 149).

Ercole Procaccini the Elder trained in the studio of Prospero Fontana and worked alongside him on the decoration of the Belvedere, Rome. The artist is documented in Parma, where he painted the two organ doors of the cathedral, and in Milan where he moved definitively in 1586. The artist was an important contributor to the development of Mannerism in Bologna. He translated the style of the Bolognese followers of Raphael into a language distinctive for its idealising features. His work coheres well with the taste of painting in Bologna at the close of the century. Indeed, the new dictates of the Counter-Reformation imposed the transition from a figurative language still bound to late-Mannerist canons, into a new style, that was more immediate and comprehensible and capable of stimulating sentiments of devotion among the faithful, and was therefore better suited to the new requirements of religious ritual.
Specialist: Mark MacDonnell