Romanist school; century XVI

Romanesque school; 16th century.
"Saint Peter and Saint Paul".
Carved, polychromed, gilded and stewed wood.
They show repainting and restorations.
Measurements: 44 x 22 x 14 cm; 44 x 23 x 14 x 14 cm.
Both pieces belong to the Romanist school, a current of Spanish Mannerism which shows a marked influence of the Italian authors who worked in Rome, especially Raphael and Michelangelo. The Romanist style is particularly characterised by its monumentality and powerful anatomies, features that can be clearly seen in this carving. In fact, the monumentality of the figure is reinforced by the wide folds of the clothes, which herald the chiaroscuro sense of the Baroque. However, the expressiveness is clearly mannerist, restrained and conventional, closer to the conceptualism of the 16th century than to the more naturalistic and dramatic images of the Baroque.
Saint Paul was a Hellenised Jew from the Diaspora, born in Tarsus. He was therefore Jewish by ethnicity, Greek by culture and Roman by nationality. He received the name Saul, which he changed to Paul after his conversion. Born at the beginning of the first century, he studied in Jerusalem under the rabbi Gamaliel, who would have been noted for his hatred of Christians. One day, when he was on his way from Jerusalem to Damascus around the year 35, he was dazzled by lightning and fell from his horse. Then he heard the voice of Jesus saying to him: "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? As a result of this experience, the saint went abruptly from persecutor to zealot of Christianity. After curing the blindness of a Christian from Damascus, he began his life as a missionary until he reached Jerusalem, where he came into contact with Peter and the other apostles. In the Middle Ages numerous corporations were placed under his patronage, due to various aspects of his iconography, life and miracles. However, St Paul was never a popular saint, which is proof of the relative poverty of his iconography. In fact, his role in art is not commensurate with his importance in the spread of Christianity. In early Christian art, his only attributes are a book or a scroll, and in the 13th century his emblem appears, the sword that was the instrument of his martyrdom.
Saint Peter (Bethsaida, c. 1 BC - Rome, 67) was, according to the New Testament, a fisherman, known to be one of Jesus' twelve apostles. The Catholic Church identifies him through the apostolic succession as the first Pope, based among other things on Jesus' words to him: "You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the power of Death shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven". St. Peter could be said to have been Jesus' confessor, his closest disciple, the two being united by a very special bond, as narrated in both the canonical and apocryphal Gospels.