Plague Saints

During an outbreak of plague in Milan in 1576 Bishop Carlo Borromeo, who was later canonized, was said to have visited the homes of the afflicted, ministered to the sick at the plague hospital of St. Gregory, and walked in procession barefoot, in penance for his congregation, with a rope around his neck and carrying a relic of the Holy Nail.

[2] During the Counter-Reformation images of San Carlo proliferated in Catholic churches, depicting his fight against the plague by the power of the sacrament of the Eucharist.

[3] The plague saints are depicted on city gates, and in panel paintings and fresco cycles in works that were commissioned by religious orders, clergy and others.

Saint Sebastian has been painted by many well-known Renaissance artists such as Raphael, El Greco, Holbein, Guido Reni, Piero del Pollaiuolo, Mantega, Giovanni Bellini and Perugino.

Sebastian is depicted in a Florentine engraving from the 1470s that includes the text of an invocation that the purchaser is recommended to recite.