Recognising saints: cleaver

This priest – whose hair has been shaved, or tonsured – once stood on the right side of a small altarpiece which Crivelli painted for the church of San Domenico, in Ascoli Piceno, in the Italian Marche. He is Saint Peter Martyr, the second saint of the Dominican Order, and their first martyr.The...

A saint holding a lily and a book gazes upwards, seemingly untroubled by the curved knife which splits his skull and the dagger in his shoulder. His hair is tonsured (shaved) to show that he was a member of a religious order, and he wears the black and white uniform of the Dominicans. This is Pet...

This scene tells the story of the murder of Saint Peter Martyr, a friar of the Dominican Order who was killed by members of the Cathars, a heretical sect whose teachings he had spoken against publicly. The saint is shown on the left – he has collapsed to his knees, an axe lodged in his skull. His...