St. Benedict

Oil
Cathedral of St. Mary, Pamplona, Spain

Here St. Benedict wears the black habit of the Benedictine order and holds a crozier, symbolic of his role as an abbot, in his right hand. In his left is a book, which could refer either to the scriptures or to the saint's authorship of the Rule of St. Benedict. Most images give him a somewhat shorter beard.

A label at the site says the painting is attributed to "Ricci" – presumably Sebastiano Ricci (1659-1734) rather than his nephew the landscape painter Marco Ricci (1676-1730). But the rococo style of Sebastiano's paintings tends to be a good deal more exuberant than this work.

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Photographed at the cathedral by Richard Stracke, shared under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.