The Basilica of the Servants of Mary
Slaughters of the Innocents
The “Slaughter of the Innocents” is an episode from the Gospel of Saint Matthew connected with the life of Jesus. According to the narrative, Herod, King of Judea, when he heard from the Magi about the birth of a new king, ordered that all male children under two years of age living in and around Bethlehem be killed. Jesus managed to escape the massacre because an angel warned Joseph in a dream to flee to Egypt. The story is a frequent subject in painting because it is commemorated during the Christmas season and is tied to the veneration as martyrs of the Holy Innocents, the babies killed in the slaughter. Spreading throughout the West from the middle of the fifth century, this veneration responded well to the fears of that period connected with the high rate of infant mortality and also to the brutality of King Herod, accused of killing even some of his own sons so as not to lose his throne.
This subject is treated in the church of the Servants of Mary in the fourteenth-century fresco by
Pietro Lorenzetti, with the assistance of two artists in his workshop, and in the panel painting by
Matteo di Giovanni dated 1491. This altarpiece was made for the private chapel of the Spannocchi family located in the right aisle and dedicated to the Holy Innocents, as it contained a relic of the little martyrs.
These two works, far apart in style, differ also in their illustration of the event. Lorenzetti’s fresco, located in the first apse chapel from the right, reflects the expressive force of this Gospel story, showing the cruel figure of Herod watching the scene from above and ordering the massacre with a gesture of his hand. The depiction of the slaughter becomes in some passages pure moments of grief, with the mother weeping over her dead child or the woman who recognizes her son in the heap of bodies.
Matteo di Giovanni, who had painted this subject on three other occasions, of which two are still present in Siena, organizes the scene differently. The tyrant Herod is at the center of the painting and turns to his adviser, indifferent to what is happening before his eyes, while some mothers attempt to defend their children, like the woman who lunges at the henchman’s face, which may be a self-portrait of the artist. In this painting, the tone of the narrative is more sober compared to the other Sienese works on the same theme; this suggests the hypothesis that the scene does not refer just to the massacre of women and children committed by the Turks in Otranto Cathedral in 1480, but may allude to the new political climate in Siena, which was moving towards possible forms of tyranny.