Massacre of the Innocents

The painting, commissioned for the chapel of the Berò family in the Bolognese church of San Domenico and painted in 1611 probably during the artist’s sojourn in Rome, depicts the episode of the massacre of the innocents, narrated in the Gospel according to Matthew.

Between two ancient architectural backdrops, reminiscent of a theatrical stage set, two women on the right seek refuge with their children. A man, portrayed from behind, chases a screaming woman, and another, with dagger in hand, bends over the mothers who, kneeling on the ground, scramble to protect the children or cry over the bodies of those already slain.

High in the sky, two little angels display the palms of martyrdom.

Despite the turbulent nature of the subject, the painting’s layout follows a precise compositional scheme with the two opposing symmetrical groups of figures at the sides and, isolated, right in the centre of the scene, the dagger of one of the executioners, symbol of the entire subject.

The action seems to be frozen in the culminating moment, suspended in the moment between the before and after of the bloody event, as stated by writer and art critic Cesare Garboli, “exactly in the point where nothing happens”. The violence remains confined to the bruised corpses of the children in the foreground and the chilling screams of the women.

The horror is sublimated in the nobility of a measure taken by studying the large model by Raphael and classical antiquity, the famous sculpture of Niobe in the Vatican museums, the inspiration for the figure of the woman kneeling on the right.

From the first mentions in the literature on art, the contrast between the painting modes and the tragic nature of the subject, summarized in the paradox of the horror combined with the beloved children, coined in 1619 by the poet Giovan Battista Marino, aroused the admiration of art critics and writers who saw in these paintings the realization of the classical ideal of harmony and balance.