03 — ARTWORK
St Thomas of Villanova
- MEDIUM
- Marble, over life-size
- TYPE
- Religious
PALETTE
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THIS REPRODUCTION
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CURRENT LOCATION · Sant'Agostino (Rome)
- FILE
- 1077 × 1600 px · JPEG
COMMENTARY
UNDERLINED TERMS ARE DEFINED IN THE GLOSSARY.
Cafà made a notable contribution to sculpted altars with this group, which was begun in 1663 for the Roman church of Sant'Agostino. The work was to replace an earlier painting of the same subject by Giovanni Francesco Romanelli, so an element of competition between painting and sculpture may have featured in the project.
Cafà envisaged an altar in which the saint stands in his niche and distributes alms to a woman and small children beneath who symbolize charity. This central tableau is surmounted by God the Father with angels, a work contributed by Ercole Ferrata, and flanked by reliefA sculptural work in which all or part projects from the flat surface. There are three basic forms: low relief (bas-relief, basso rilievo), in which figures project less than half their depth from the background; medium relief (mezzo-rilievo), in which figures are seen half round; and high relief (alto rilievo), in which figures are almost detached from their background. of scenes from the life of the saint, executed much later by Andrea Bergondi (active 1743-1789). A surviving bozzettoStrictly speaking, a small three-dimensional sketch in wax or clay made by a sculptor in preparation for a larger and more finished work. By extension, a rapid sketch in oil, made as a study for a larger picture. reveals that the saint was sculpted according to Cafà's intentions, but death prevented him from addressing the figures below. This task fell to Ferrata who translated Cafà's sculptural poetry into more mundane prose. The finished group is more restrained as well as scaled down.
OTHER WORKS BY MELCHIORRE CAFÀ
CITE THIS RECORD — BIBTEX
@online{wga-r9e5177e7b1c8d1,
author = {Krén, Emil and Marx, Daniel},
title = {St Thomas of Villanova by CAFÀ, Melchiorre},
organization = {{Web Gallery of Art}},
date = {2026-09-14},
url = {https://beta.wga.hu/artists/caf-melchiorre-r2883a648ecc254/st-thomas-of-villanova-r9e5177e7b1c8d1},
urldate = {2026-09-14},
langid = {english}
}ACCESSED 2026-09-14. REPLACE THE AUTHOR FIELD WITH THE COMMENTARY AUTHOR WHERE ONE IS NAMED.