Artwork · 16th century · Taddeo Zuccaro

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The Martyrdom of Saint Paul

Taddeo Zuccaroca. 1557–58Pen and brown and gray ink, brown wash, over black chalk, heightened with white, on buff paper.48.8 × 37.7 cm

At a glance

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An old man, Saint Paul, kneels with his hands pressed together while a bare-backed executioner lifts a broad blade over his head.
Taddeo Zuccaro, a painter working in Rome, drew it around 1557–58 in pen, brown wash, and white.
It is a big sheet, nearly 49 cm tall and made of two pieces of paper joined together, and it freezes the second before the blow.

Reading the picture

5 places to look closer

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Start with the kneeling figure low in the center. Paul bows his curly head so deeply that his face almost disappears into brown shadow. His hands are clasped at his beard. Touches of white on his shoulder and sleeve make it look as if light is falling on his back.
Now look above the executioner's hands. A wide, curved blade hangs in the air, about to come down. Paul is usually shown with a sword, but this blade is flat and broad, more like an axe. A gray line runs along its edge, a second pass of the pen.
Go up to the top left corner. A banner hangs from a crossbar on a tall pole, its cloth twisting in the wind. Behind it stands a thicket of spear points. A few quick vertical strokes of the brush are enough to tell you an army is gathered here.
Look at the building at the top center. A round tower and a cornice are sketched with a few light pen lines. The people are fully shaded, but the background is only an idea jotted down. You can see what the artist had decided and what he was still leaving open.
Zoom in on the soldier at the right. Under a helmet with scroll-shaped ornaments, he looks down at the ground. He is not watching the executioner or the saint. The white on his helmet catches the light against the dark crowd.

When it was painted

Around 1557, Taddeo Zuccaro was twenty-eight. Born in 1529 in Sant'Angelo in Vado, a small town in central Italy, he set off for Rome on his own at about fourteen. The first years were hard. He ground colors in other painters' workshops and taught himself by copying Raphael's work whenever he could.

We know about those lean years thanks in part to his brother. Federico Zuccaro, about ten years younger, later drew a series of pictures of Taddeo's struggling youth. That series is now at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles.

By the late 1550s, Taddeo was painting chapels in Roman churches. One commission was to decorate the Frangipani Chapel in San Marcello al Corso with scenes from the life of Saint Paul. This drawing is a study for the martyrdom scene in the middle of the chapel's vault.

His work kept growing. From around 1560 he decorated the Villa Farnese at Caprarola for Cardinal Alessandro Farnese. But he died in September 1566, at thirty-seven, leaving the lower walls of the chapel unfinished. Federico took over and completed them.

Taddeo was buried in the Pantheon in Rome, near the tomb of Raphael. The boy who had learned by copying Raphael ended up resting close to him.

Look again at Paul kneeling in the light. On this one sheet, the former color-grinder worked out a scene meant to hang high on a church ceiling.

The painter

Taddeo Zuccaro

1529–1566

All paintings by Taddeo Zuccaro →

The Martyrdom of Saint Paul

Questions to think about

Look for itIn the crowd behind Paul, can you find one man with his hand at his mouth and another throwing up an open palm?
Why?Why do you think Zuccaro chose the moment just before the blade falls, rather than just after?
What about you?The soldier on the right looks away from what is happening. When I see something wrong happen in front of me, what does my face look like?

Same period