Vincenzo Sebastiani
Saint Thecla

16th century
Mosaic
St. Mark's Cathedral, Venice

St. Thecla's attribute is the cross. The round thing in her left hand may be a martyr's crown: she was considered a martyr because rather than give up the faith she endured torments that should have ended her life.

The inscription on the plinth is the artist's signature in Latin: vincentius [se]b[astianus] f[ecit], "Vincenzo Sebastiani made this." Sebastiani was the first mosaicist at St. Mark's to sign his work. In 1512 he fell from a scaffold while working on a mosaic in the basilica and died (Boito, 641-42).

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Photographed at the cathedral by Richard Stracke, shared under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.