The Martyrdom of Saint Anastasia

Robert Dance identified this drawing as a study by Cerruti for a ceiling painting in the nave of Santa Anastasia, Rome. The outlines of the elaborately shaped field of the canvas are clearly established in the drawing. However, there are significant differences in the placement of all of the principal figures in the complex composition. The Portuguese Cardinal Nuno da Cunha e Ataide (1664-1750; created 1712) was named protector of Santa Anastasia on June 16, 1721. At that time the church was apparently in a very dilapidated state, and he immediately ordered a new roof and a sumptuous wood ceiling at an initial cost of 4,000 scudi. This was followed by the commission given to Cerruti for the large ceiling canvas that he painted in twenty-eight days and which was in place by April 25, 1722 (see N. Mallory in Bolletino d'Arte, no. 61, 1976, p. 103).

Saint Anastasia was said to have been burned alive, tied to a stake in the ground with arms outstretched, at Sirmium in Pannonia during the persecutions of Diocletian in A. D. 304. She was venerated in Rome at an early date, and her cult became associated with a church known as 'titulus Anastasiae' that had been built in the fourth century and named after its founder, a Christian woman called Anastasia. This early foundation, enlarged and embellished over the years, soon came to be called the church of Santa Anastasia, the Pannonian martyr.
Until the very recent identification of this drawing, Cerruti was hardly known as a draughtsman. In the Kupferstichkabinett of Berlin there is an early pen drawing of hunters resting in an inn, signed and dated 1686 (KdZ 451; Gernsheim photograph 33879), and Cerruti's red chalk self-portrait executed for Nicola Pio is in the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm (Clark, 1967, p. 12, no. 10). Vittorio Casale recently attributed to Cerruti frescoes in the vault of the sacristy of Santa Maria in Via Lata, Rome, and he has identified a drawing in the Ambrosiana, Milan (inv. F 253 no. 983), as a study for the Assumption of the Virgin that occupies the center of the ceiling (see V. Casale in Scritti di Storia dell'Arte in onore di Federico Zeri, Milan 1984, pp. 744, 753-754, note 24).