Pier Dandini
St. Vincent Ferrer Resuscitates a Man in Salamanca
Early 18th century
Church of Santa Maria Novella, Florence, Italy
Butler (II, 33) reports the story that during a sermon St. Vincent Ferrer said that the Day of Judgment was immediately at hand. His listeners were doubtful, so he asked the corpse of a woman who was being carried to her burial to revive and assure the people that it was true. She did, and then fell back into death. This may be the subject of the present painting, although its label in the church calls it the revival of a man, not a woman, and the pale figure being carried in the foreground is clearly a man.
Most of the medieval accounts of this saint raising people from the dead have him making the sign of the cross over the body. The artist has used a crucifix in Vincent's hand to represent this gesture.
Read more about St. Vincent Ferrer.
Photographed at the church by Richard Stracke, shared under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.