Saint James the Greater

Author: Unknown Spanish sculptor (active end sec. XVI – first half sec. XVII)

Dating: First thirty sec. XVII

Material: Carved and painted wood, gypsum cloth and painted

Dimensions: cm 203x70x47

Location: Milazzo, church of San Giacomo

The simulacrum is placed on the second altar to the left of the church of San Giacomo. In line with a rather widespread iconography, the apostle recalls the likeness of Christ by the short beard and hair divided on top and falling into two bands on the sides of the head. Pictured standing, with his gaze fixed forward, he wears on the tunic a short cloak marked by scallop valves, distinctive characteristic of the “way” of Compostela. Saint James holds the Gospel with his left hand and with his right a mighty pilgrim’s brogue equipped with metal tip to resist the roughness of the long path. The shape of the wooden halo is singular, marking an anchored cross whose arms alternate with flaming rays. It is not known what was the original chromium since the conservative restoration of 1991 has correctly maintained the historicized ridipinture eighteenth century coat and robe, crossed by crested volutes and phytoform motifs of rococo taste, in blue and gold, all similar to the elegant ornamentation painted on the parapet of the choir room in the same church.

Appreciated by Perdichizzi at the end of the seventeenth century, the statue is almost ignored by specialist studies – perhaps because of the poor accessibility of its container – and is mentioned only by local sources that generally date it to the sixteenth century. Some technical and stylistic considerations lead to a reassessment of the work, also in relation to the construction of the building belonging to it, reference point for the numerous Spanish presences in Milazzo. According to local historography, built in 1432, near the homonymous bastion placed to defend the port, the church of San Giacomo must have been rebuilt later if, as reported by Naples without reporting the time of the works, “very old and guasta was leveled and in the site of this one another was built larger”. Certainly, became sacramental parish in 1606, attended by the “majority of the people” in a phase when the new mother church was under construction, was subject to consistent renovations financed by the Real Heritage in the first thirty years of the seventeenth century.

Following these works it may have been obtained in the wall of the nave the niche intended to accommodate the statue of the saint, now visible on the eastern facade of the building. Although the strictly frontal setting of the figure at first sight pays a static and archaizing image, to look carefully it is possible to see in the unknown architect of the simulacrum the intention of fixing the apparition of the saint in his solemn approach, In this sense, the spread of the slightly advanced right leg and some realistic details such as the wavy edge of the pilgrim on the broad shoulders, the loose draping of the open cloak on the left arm and the narrowing of the folds in the center of the robe, As to emphasize the nature of the fabric’s adherence to the legs while walking. The work, indeed marked by a classical composure late Renaissance, is however expression of a more modern feeling not exclusively autochthonous.

In the contained and severe realism, there are controriformate moods of Iberian origin that find support in the formal and structural peculiarities of the artifact. The execution procedure brings the statue closer to the Spanish imagenes de vestir, polymaterial sculptures conceived between the end of the Fifth and the beginning of the Seventeenth century with the dual function of obtaining greater adherence to truth – aimed at a total emotional involvement of the faithful – and to meet the needs of the processional rite by lightening the simulacrum. In the San Giacomo milazzese head, hands, feet, carved and painted, are mounted with pins on an internal structure of sketched wood; this sort of mannequin is covered by garments made with a sturdy canvas stiffened with glue and chalk and finally painted. This technique has affinity with that of some seventeenth century Sicilian artifacts, such as the San Rocco di Ragusa, the San Leonardo in chair and several other sculptures by Militello in Val di Catania and with the polymaterica sculpture trapanese, Our example differs from the others in that there are no internal padding or fillings of cork and straw.

A more significant structural and stylistic correspondence is found with the Siviglian sculpture of the first quarter of the seventeenth century, and in particular, although with due reservations given the obvious qualitative difference between the Milazzese sculpture and the proposed models, There is a certain familiarity with the measured and elegant naturalism of the Sevillian school leader, Juan Martìnez Montanés, who in 1624 realized with the same technique as ours, for the Jesuit church of the Annunciation, a Saint Ignatius and a Saint Francis Borgia whose pictorial finishing is performed by Francisco Pacheco. As for that characteristic hieratic fixity that is seen in the expression of San Giacomo di Milazzo, it could find an explanation if brought back to the desire to repropose the features of the thirteenth-century icon of Compostela, The final destination of the hiacopeo pilgrimage is often replaced by more easily accessible surrogates; this would motivate the schematic model of the head with its compact and rigid profile in contrast to the rest of the figure.

In the light of these considerations, it could be assumed that the statue was made in Sicily by an artist of Spanish culture or that it has arrived at Milazzo, strategic and stainless garrison of the crown on the eastern side of the island, Commissioned by one of the many documented Iberian families on site. These, as the soldiers stationed in the civitas, must have been dear to the cult of the patron saint of their country of origin. Between the Four and Sixteenth Centuries, for example, there are two members of the D’Amico clan, both named Giovanni, and the Spanish infantry captain Diego de Vargas, an acquired member of the same family. Finally, of particular importance is the epitaph of the slab covering the access to the crypt, engraved in 1662 by order of Rodrigo Alvarez de Aguiar to remember the burial of “Antonio de Santa Crus y Serra y sus herederos y todp los Espanoles que mueren en este presidio” in 1618.

Buda V., Lanuzza S. (a cura di), Tesori di Milazzo. Arte sacra tra Seicento e Settecento., Milazzo 2015