Matteo di Giovanni: Saint Bartholomew with his own flayed skin draped over his shoulders

According to legend, one of the apostles, Bartholomew, was flayed alive and then beheaded. Bartholomew preached in Lesser India and in the Caucasus. In the Orthodox tradition he is held to have suffered martyrdom on the site of the modern city of Baku.

In the 1480s di Giovanni was the first to depict Bartholomew in a mantle made of his own skin. Before then European iconography had known an image of the Apostle Bartholomew holding his skin in his hands, but not one carelessly throwing it over his bloodied, athletic body.

The painting is in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest.

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Matteo di Giovanni: Saint Bartholomew with his own flayed skin draped over his shoulders

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