Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian (Pollaiuolo)

The Pucci family commissioned it as the altarpiece for the family chapel, the oratory dedicated to Saint Sebastian in the church of Santissima Annunziata, Florence. Giorgio Vasari dates it to 1475, attributing it solely to Piero del Pollaiolo, but it is today seen as a joint work, probably also involving other assistants from their joint workshop.

Roberto Pucci withdrew the work from the oratory on the pretext of restoration but then in 1857 sold it to the National Gallery.

It is considered Antonio's masterpiece, with a more rigid geometric control on the composition than in his previous works, without giving up his usual naturalness of poses and movement – the four archers in the foreground form two symmetrical poses, with the two central ones reloading and the two on the edges firing, in perfect equilibrium either side of the central post to which Sebastian is tied.

It can be contrasted with its near-contemporary, the Saint Sebastian by Botticelli, which instead puts the figure of the saint in isolation in a Flemish-inspired landscape. Borrowed from the Botticelli painting is the Saint Sebastian by Francesco Botticini, formerly attributed to Andrea del Castagno, dated to the years immediately after 1474.

• 
  Sandro Botticelli, Saint Sebastian, Berlin, Gemäldegalerie, 1474
• 
  Francesco Botticini, Saint Sebastian, Metropolitan Museum of Art, post 1474

• Aldo Galli, I Pollaiolo, "Galleria delle arti" series number 7, Milano, 5 Continents Editions, 2005, p. 36.
• Alessandro Cecchi, Botticelli e l’età di Lorenzo il Magnifico, in the series "I grandi maestri dell’arte. L’artista e il suo tempo", Firenze, E – ducation.it, 2007, p. 115.
• National Gallery site