Ippolito Scarsella aka Scarsellino

(Ferrara, 1551 – 1620)

Martyrdom of St. Margaret, 1611

Oil on canvas

Museo Schifanoia, inv. DOC51

The work depicts St. Margaret at the moment of martyrdom at the hands of the executioner, holding a taut rope in her left hand and a sword in her right. The saint is kneeling, her eyes turned to heaven in a gesture of supplication; beside her, a child with a terrified face sits to her left, while two armed soldiers can be glimpsed behind her. Below the stage, in the foreground, three women and two girls, all depicted in half-length, watch the execution. The architectural backdrop consists of a staircase and a distant fortified structure. Above, in the sky between clouds, we see Christ with arms wide open, surrounded by various angels in different poses. The work, dated 1611, is attributed by sources to Scarsellino for its undoubted stylistic merits in composition, expressiveness, figure dynamics, foreshortening perspective skills and chromatic quality. The painting had been commissioned for the Conservatory of Santa Margherita founded in 1594 by Margherita Gonzaga, Alfonso II’s third wife, for the purpose of taking in young orphan girls.