
The St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre of French Protestants (1572). It was the climax of the French Wars of Religion, which were brought to an end by the Edict of Nantes (1598). In 1620, persecution was renewed and continued until the French Revolution in 1789.
François Dubois – Current valid link to file (same source): Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts; direct link to the image: [2] Original link (museum homepage only): Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts.
- Public Domain
- File:La masacre de San Bartolomé, por François Dubois.jpg
- Created: between circa 1572 and circa 1584 date QS:P571,+1550-00-00T00:00:00Z/7,P1319,+1572-00-00T00:00:00Z/9,P1326,+1584-00-
François Dubois
The Massacre of Saint-Barthélemy, circa 1572-1584
- François Dubois (Amiens, 1529 – Geneva, 1584)
- The Massacre of St. Bartholomew, circa 1572-1584
- Oil on walnut wood , 93.5 x 154.1 cm
- Gift of the Municipality of Lausanne, 1862
- Inv. 729
- © Cantonal Museum of Fine Arts of Lausanne
This painting represents the massacre of Protestants started in Paris on August 24, 1572 and continued for several days, known as the Saint-Barthélemy massacre. It stages the main episodes of this bloody page of the Wars of Religion in a striking view of the city of Paris.
The topography is manipulated to show the main locations of this tragedy. On the left you can see the church of the convent of the Grands-Augustins (now gone) where the tocsin sounded which triggered the killings, the Seine and the Meuniers bridge. In the center, the Louvre and Catherine de Medici, the black widow, considered the main instigator of the massacre. In the foreground, the private mansion of Anne de Laval, in front of which Admiral de Coligny, leader of the Protestant party, was killed before being defenestrated, beheaded and castrated. Gathered around his corpse, the leaders of the Catholic party, the Dukes of Guise and Aumale and the Chevalier d’Angoulême. On the right, the Saint-Honoré gate and, on the hill of La Villette, the gibbet of Montfaucon, where the body of the admiral will be hung upside down. Bringing together more than one hundred and fifty figures,
This painting is quite exceptional because of the quality of its execution, but also because contemporary representations of Saint-Barthélemy are very rare. It bears on the first step of the steps of the hotel in front of which Admiral de Coligny is assassinated the inscription “franciscus Sylvius Ambianus pinx[it]”. The location of this inscription, the signature of the painter François Dubois, of whom it is the only painting known to date, says a lot about the convictions of this Protestant from Amiens who took refuge in Geneva after the massacre.
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