St Stephen the First Martyr 2025

Truly it is worthy... as we consider the birth of the blessed Stephan, who was both levite and martyr, and who set forth for us venerable examples of faith, of holy courage, of stewardship and outstanding chastity, of preaching and of marvelous constancy, of confession and patience. And therefore worthily with the feast of his passion does he before all others follow the birth of Thy Son, of whose everlasting glory he came forth as the first martyr. Through (the same) Christ our Lord, through whom the angels praise Thy majesty... (An ancient preface for the feast of St Stephen the First Martyr.)

The Ordination of the First Deacons, 1511, by the Venetian painter Vittore Carpaccio (1460/65 - ca. 1525). Now in the Gemäldegallerie in Berlin.

VD: Beati Stephani levitae simul et martyris natalitia recolentes, qui fidei, qui sacrae militiae, qui dispensationis et castitatis egregiae, qui praedicationis mirabilisque constantiae, qui confessionis ac patientiae nobis exempla veneranda proposuit. Et ideo nativitatem Filii tui merito prae ceteris passionis suae festivitate subsequitur, cuius gloriae sempiternae primus martyr occurrit. Per eundem Christum, Dominum nostrum...

In the days of the Venetian Republic, one of the most important aspects of the city’s religious life was a group of large and prestigious confraternities known as the “scuole grandi – the great schools.” These associations engaged in a wide variety of devotional and charitable activities, and each of them had a large hall on which these activities were centered. There was also a number of lesser schools, one of which was dedicated to St Stephan, and frequented by men in the wool trade. The painting shown above is one of five which this school commissioned from the painter Carpaccio in honor of their patron. The schools were all suppressed when the Republic was overthrown by Napoleon, and the possessions stolen and scattered; the fourth of the series, which depicted the trial of St Stephen, was lost.

Many Venetian artists excelled at representing texture in their paintings, and loved to show rich embroidered cloths like the dalmatics in the painting above, or the garment of the man looking up at Stephen in the next one. But they tended to be weak on their drawing, and as a result, their lines are often rather hazy. (Michelangelo, very much a product of the Florentine school which excelled at drawing, is reported to have said of the Venetian artist Titian that he would be a superb painter if he would just learn how to draw.) Carpaccio, however, is a master of both drawing and perspective, which is how he is able to use the rather fantastic architectural elements in the background to create an enormous sense of space.  

Here are the remaining three: the Preaching of St Stephen, now in the Louvre. 

The Disputation of St Stephen, now in the Brera Gallery in Milan.

The Martyrdom of St Stephen, now in the State Gallery in Stuttgart. Notice the clever way Carpaccio emphasizes the collective participation in the martyrdom by giving us several figures wearing red cloth.