The picture was completed by Titian in 1530 for the church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo in Venice, and destroyed by fire on 16 August 1867. A copy by Niccolò Cassana replaced it in SS Giovanni e Paolo. There is a woodcut of it by Martin Rota (1558-1586), and a copy in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.
St. Peter Martyr, Dominican Inquisitor from Verona, was killed while on a journey in revenge for the severity with which he sought out and punished heresy. The picture shows his death among trees in a mountainous landscape on the road to Como. Michelangelo is an influence on the muscular figures and the violent action.
In Discourse Eleven Reynolds cites San Pietro Martire as a model of excellence in the context of his discussion of the importance to the artist of knowing how much to omit in landscape painting.
Ruskin, however, refers to it as the 'most popular if not the 'most perfect' of Titian 's landscapes, and his criticisms of it relate to those aspects of Ruskin's later assessment of Titian in which he complains about rhetoric, and the use of 'colour' - a word from rhetoric as well as painting - for dramatic effect rather than truth. Compare, too, Modern Painters II ( Works, 4.244) where Ruskin expresses doubts about Titian's clouds and tree trunks. Kugler, ed. Eastlake, Handbook of the History of Painting, Part One, The Italian Schools, First Edition, also expresses doubts about the quality of San Pietro Martire.
Tiziano Vecellio (Titian) c.1490-1576
San Pietro Martire c.1526-30
Oil on canvas, 515x308cm
Provenance: Painted for the Church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo, Venice; destroyed by fire, 1867
Further Comments: There has been several copies of this work; the first by Niccolo Cassana, which replaced the one in the Church destroyed by fire; the second a woodcut by Martin Rota (1558-86); the third, a copy in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, UK.
Collection: None
For a reproduction of this artistic work, please consult: Shanes, Eric, Turner's Human Landscape, (Heinemann, 1990), p.138