Wedding of the Virgin

Carlo Labruzzi
oils on canvas
1814

In the San Lorenzo Cathedral is a chapel dedicated to the Santo Anello (Holy Ring) which, by one holy tradition, was presented to Maria by Joseph on the occasion of their matrimony. The chapel formerly hosted a table decorated in the early 15th century by Pietro Vannuci, known as il Perugino, but this was requisitioned during the Napoleonic looting. The Santo Anello confraternity thereafter commissioned a painting from Carlo Labruzzi, Sposalizio della Vergine (Wedding of the Virgin) to replace the table.

In 1813 Labruzzi was named director of the Perugia Academy of Fine Art, a position he held until his death in 1817. The painting’s atmosphere is provided by a temple in the background whose mighty twisting columns frame the protagonists. The priest and a group of witnesses are observing the scene in which Joseph is placing the ring on Maria’s finger; on the right of the painting an unlucky suitor is breaking his staff. The painting, positioned above the altar in 1815, was not widely appreciated and in 1825 it was replaced by an artwork, still in loco, on the same theme by Jean-Baptiste Wicar.