The death of Saint Francis Regis with the Virgin, Child, Saint Francis Saverio and Saint Louis Gonzaga

The discovery of this large compositional sketch constitutes an important addition to our knowledge of Lorenzo de’ Ferrari¹. The sheet can in fact be recognised as a preparatory and compositional study for the lost altarpiece with The Death of San Francis Regis with the Virgin, Child, San Francis Saverio and San Louis Gonzaga.

The painting had been executed after 1734 for the church of the Jesuit complex of Sant' Ignazio in Genoa and was considered at the time one of the artist’s masterpieces. The church of Sant' Ignazio, now part of the Genoa State Archives, was built in 1723-24 and, according to Ratti, contained two large altarpieces by De Ferrari, facing each other at the sides of the circular space: 'There are also various paintings, which De' Ferrari carried out in oil for the churches of the city ... two very large he made for this church of the Jesuit Novitiate. The first of them included the Virgin, San Stanislas Kostka and San Francis Borgia; in the second he represented the death of San Francis Regis; and the Virgin, San Francesco Saverio and San Louis Gonzaga’².

The first painting, one of the artist's mature masterpieces, is preserved in the cathedral of Genoa (fig. 1), while the appearance of the second can now be reconstructed thanks to the drawing here discussed. To the latter composition we can be also connect a sketch in black chalk from a private collection in which the artist explores the figure of the Child (fig. 2)³.

These two important canvases were the culmination of de’ Ferrari’s collaboration with the Jesuits, a relation started in 1726, when, on the occasion of the canonisation of Luigi Gonzaga and Stanislas Kostka, the Order had commissioned from the artist a series of ephemeral decorations for the churches of Genoa. A few years later, following the completion of the new church, it was again De Ferrari's who celebrated, with his two monumental canvases, the exaltation of the Jesuit saints. In order to accomplish better the commission, in the spring of 1734 he made a trip to Rome, meeting the major artists of the time and seeing in person the great masterpieces of Jesuit art⁴.

As suggested by Mary Newcome, the group of altarpieces or graphic projects made by de’ Ferrari for the Jesuits is strongly influenced by the Roman models of Carlo Maratta, which he had already met through the work of his masters Domenico Parodi (1672-1742) and Paolo Girolamo Piola (1666-1725)⁵.

The languid pose of the dying saint, the whirlwind of angels in daring positions and the vertical impetus of the composition refers in fact to Maratta’s great altarpiece Death of St. Francis Xavier, executed in 1679 for the Chiesa del Gesù in Rome⁶.

The Genoese artist had studied this composition in a drawing now in private collection (fig. 3) and in one in the Morgan Library in New York (fig. 4) which can be interpreted as the figurative precedent of our San Francesco Regis. A fourth drawing, Metropolitan Museum of Art, depicting the Expulsion of the Money Changers from the Temple, not linked to any known painting but directly inspired by Raphael’s Expulsion of Heliodorus from the Temple, strengthens the connection between de’ Ferrari and the Roman world.

Also notable are the references to the painted perspectives of Andrea Pozzo (1642-1709), whose influence is particularly evident in the Madonna between St. Stanislas Kostka and St. Francis Borgia⁷. Most likely, the twin painting of St. Francis Regis would also have had a similar monumental background, evoked in our sheet by the presence of two half-columns just hinted at the right of the composition.