# St Gregory Delivers the Soul of a Monk [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [CRESPI, Giovanni Battista]() - Date: 1551-1600 - Technique: Oil on canvas ## Commentary Gregory's Dialogues \(4:40\) tell of a monk from whom the last rites were withheld by his abbot because he was found to have hidden, three gold coins in his cell. By his prayers Gregory secured the release of the monk's soul from purgatory. Angels carry the monk's soul to heaven. The visionary and dramatic violence of the leading painter in the group known as the Seicento Lombardo places the episode connected with the mass into the background. Instead, all eyes are on the turbulent vision that links Purgatory in a spiral leading upward to the light of highest Heaven. ## Related artworks - [Adoration of the Shepherds]() - [Entombment of Christ]() - [Religious Figures Praying at the Foot of a Tree]() - [St Carlo Borromeo Adoring Christ]() - [St Carlo Borromeo Erecting Crosses a the Gates of Milan \(detail\)]() - [St Carlo Borromeo]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()