Crucifixion with Saints (Annibale Carracci)

In Felsina Pittrice in 1678, Carlo Cesare Malvasia stated that Carracci produced the work when he was eighteen (defining it as "the first work ever to come from the great Annibale's brush") and that the commission was initially offered to Ludovico Carracci, who decided the offered payment was too little and so passed it onto his young cousin Annibale. However, this account is unreliable, since cleaning in the 1920s revealed a date of 1583 on the canvas, at which point Annibale was twenty-three.[1] That still makes it his earliest surviving work and his first surviving work for a public audience,[1] though it throws doubt on Malvasia's dating, since a church commission is unlikely to have been his first work, instead indicating that Carracci was already a successful artist[2]</ref>

Malvasia also states that older and more established artists in Bologna criticised the work for excessive realism (calling its figure of Christ a "naked porter"), the composition's disharmony, the inaccurate and fast brushwork and the lack of decorum seen, for example, in Francis' calloused feet.[1] Modern art historians instead see these features as Annibale (albeit with a youthful uncertainty) attempted to break away from the late-Mannerist style then dominant in Bologna and establish a new artistic language founded in realism.[1]

Bartolomeo Passarotti, Crucifixion with Saints, 1560-1570, Collezioni Comunali d'Arte di Palazzo d'Accursio, Bologna

With a serene expression and his head tilted to the left,[3] the figure of Christ looks down at a group of saints. Francis of Assisi kneels before the cross in front of the Virgin Mary, whilst Petronius stands on the other side in brocaded episcopal vestments, with an altar boy holding his crosier behind him,[3] blocking the viewer's view of John the Evangelist behind them.[1]

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  Print of the painting by Orazio Samacchini (1566-1568), in Basilica di Santa Maria dei Servi in Bologna
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  Ercole Procaccini, Madonna in glory with the patron saints of Bologna, 1570-1580, Bologna, Chiesa di San Giovanni in Monte
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  Pellegrino Tibaldi, Annunciation of the Birth of John the Baptist, 1551-1553, Bologna, Basilica di San Giacomo Maggiore
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  Bartolomeo Passarotti, Madonna in glory with saints, circa 1570, Bologna, Basilica di San Petronio
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  Prospero Fontana, Crucifixion, circa 1580, Museo del Convento di San Giuseppe, Bologna
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  Bartolomeo Cesi, Crucifixion with saints, 1584, Basilica di San Martino, Bologna