Akademik

(d. 258)

   One of the deacons of Rome, St. Lawrence was martyred for selling the Church's possessions and giving the money to the poor. When Emperor Valerian heard of the saint's actions, he demanded the return of the sold items. Lawrence gathered the blind, crippled, orphans, and poor and told Valerian that these were the treasures of the Church. In retaliation, Valerian condemned Lawrence to burn on a hot griddle. As the saint bore the agony of his martyrdom, he asked his executioners to turn him over for he was already well-cooked on one side — the scene depicted by Titian (1548-1559) in the Chiesa dei Gesuiti in Venice and Agnolo Bronzino (1569) in the Church of San Lorenzo, Florence. Key episodes from the saint's life are included in the Chapel of Nicolas V at the Vatican frescoed by Fra Angelico in 1448 and the Sancta Sanctorum at the Lateran Palace, Rome, a chapel dedicated to the saint. Michael Pacher's St. Lawrence Distributing Alms (1465-1470; Munich, Alte Pinakothek) is part of the dismantled St. Lawrence Altarpiece of St. Lorenzen near Bruneck, now dispersed in various museums.