Oil on canvas Teodoro Matteini (circle of , Pistoia 1754 - Venice 1831

Subject: Constantine signs the Edict of Milan

Author: Teodoro Matteini (area of, Pistoia 1754-Venice, 1831)

Technique and dimensions: oil on canvas, 189 x 144 cm

The painting we present represents a significant example of the pictorial trend known as “nineteenth-century historicism”. In fact, it stages an emblematic event in the history of Western culture, namely the Edict of Milan of 313 AD, with which the Western Roman Emperor Constantine and his Eastern counterpart Licinius recognized and accorded religious freedom to Christianity. Having declared the latter licit, a period of religious tolerance for the new creed was inaugurated, as well as of great political and cultural innovation, according to what we learn from the text of the rescript which reads as follows: “We, therefore, Constantine Augustus and Licinius Augustus, have resolved to grant Christians and all others the freedom to follow the religion they each believe in, so that the divinity in heaven, whatever it may be, may give us and all our subjects peace and prosperity”.

This is exactly the text that Constantine, depicted on a white horse in a military and hieratic pose at the same time (to remind us of Constantine's dual function, leader of the militia and leader of the Church), an explicit homage to the authoritative and unavoidable iconographic tradition of Raphael and Giulio Romano (Hall of Constantine, Vatican Museums) and, even before, to the sculpture of Marcus Aurelius on the Campidoglio, holds in his hands and is about to dictate to the officials depicted in the act of writing and recording (left part of the painting).

Our painter, following in the footsteps of a dense iconographic tradition, which goes from Piero della Francesca, (“Legend of the Finding of the Cross” in San Francesco in Arezzo, consecrated to everlasting fame for his nocturne of the “dream of Constantine”) to the remembered contribution of Raphael and Giulio Romano), has chosen, in fact, to immortalise the moment of the signing of the edict.

: Bringing us directly back to the circle of the Pistoian Teodoro Matteini (1754-1831), a painter mostly of historical and religious subjects, is the historical-religious subject of the canvas which, combined with a “true colouring” and a “well-used chiaroscuro” (Memorie delle belle arti III (1787), pp. VII ff; XVI) make the artist of our canvas an authoritative and vivid witness of a late-neoclassical and proto-romantic sensibility (see, for example, the Santa Margherita Colonna chasing away demons, a work from 1770, imbued with an atmosphere almost like a Gothic novel), which passes through the experience of the great Pompeo Batoni (whom Matteini followed in Rome), the lesson (compositions of noble simplicity, clear and brilliant colours) of Anton Raphael Mengs (with whom Matteini collaborated) and the anticipation of that historicist taste, witnessed by a series of themed paintings medieval, which foreshadow the contributions of F. Hayez, who was a student of Matteini at the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice.

Among the author's dense hagiographic production, comparable for stylistic affinity to the work in question and for the particular attention given to the portrait element, it is worth mentioning the altarpiece with the sermon of Saint Bernardino for the Cathedral of Perugia (1792, Perugia, Oratory of Saints Andrea and Bernardino), the altarpiece of the Death of Saint Andrew of Avellino (1794, Church of San Giovanni Fuoricivitas in Pistoia), the altarpiece with the Blessed Augustine Kazotic and Saints John the Evangelist and John the Minor, 1805, Cathedral of Traù, Dalmatia) and, last but not least, the Apotheosis of Saint Lawrence and the Blessed Francesco Carracciolo (Rome, Church of San Lorenzo in Lucina), which earned Matteini "the approval of connoisseurs and professors" according to what is reported in the chronicles of Chracas.

In addition to its intrinsic documentary value for the reasons mentioned above, a further element of interest for the proposed canvas is constituted by the not inconsiderable dimensions mentioned, which make it an excellent furnishing object as well as attractive on the market of collectors of historical paintings of romantic taste.

Its authenticity is certified with photos and documents