Conversion of St. Paul, Ventura di Vincenzio Ulivieri

Exhibition Label: "Giorgio Vasari and Court Culture in Late Renaissance Italy," Sep-2012, Sally Cornelison and Susan Earle This painting recently has been attributed to a painter and good-natured prankster who grew up at Florence’s Hospital of the Innocents and whom Vincenzo Borghini familiarly called “Livo.” It depicts St. Paul after he has been blinded by heavenly light on the road to Damascus. The Christian disciple Ananias restores Paul’s vision by laying on hands. The elderly, bearded figure at bottom left is a portrait of Vasari. The painting is a reduced-scale copy after one of Vasari’s most successful sacred works, the Conversion of St. Paul (1550-52) in the Del Monte Chapel (pictured above), which Vasari designed for Pope Julius III at San Pietro in Montorio, Rome. Thus, in addition to resembling each other in terms of their size, New Testament subjects, and close proximity in Borghini’s collection, this and the Christ Carrying the Cross are copies after two of Vasari’s prestigious Roman commissions associated with the pope and his extended family.