Saints protecting the city of Bologna intercede with the Virgin to save the city from the plague. Etching by F. Torre after G. Reni.

[Bologna?] : [Flaminio Torre?], [not later than 1656]

1 print : etching

All'altezza sereniss.a dell'infante Maria di Savoia. All'altare dell'augustiss.mo vostro nome, seren.ma altezza, consacro un ritratto de' ss.ti prottett.ri di q.ta citta poich'essendo voi un tempio, ove di religione un vero essemplare della reale vostra casa si coltiva, non dovevo altronde colocarlo, che in q.to. Gradischi la bassezza del dono, se non per altro, la supp(li)co perche egli e originato da un opp(er)a effigiata dalle preggiate setole del gra(n) Guido Reni mentre io river(en)te inchin.to all'A.V. lo consacro, et dono humiliss.o devotiss.o et ossequientiss.o ser(vito)re Flaminio Torri Paraphrase of the lettering: To her most serene highness the infanta Maria of Savoy. On the altar of your august name, most serene highness, I consecrate a portrait of the holy protectors of this city, because your being a temple or a true example of religion culivated by your royal house, I ought not to place it elsewhere than in this. May the humility of the gift please you, if for no other reason, I beseech, because it has originated from a work crafted by the esteemed bristles (of the paintbrush of) the great Guido Reni, while I, reverently bowed down, consecrate and present it to your highness, her most humble and submissive servant, Flaminio Torre

Dedicated to Marie Appoline, infanta of Savoy, daughter of Duke Carlo Emanuele I of Savoy; she was a nun in Rome, where she died in 1656

Catherine R. Puglisi, 'Guido Reni's Pallione del Voto and the plague of 1630', The art bulletin, September 1995 (on the painting)

Wellcome Collection 10156i

After a painting on silk by Guido Reni known as the 'Pala del peste' or 'Pala del voto': it was commissioned as a standard to be carried in procession as a thank-offering to the Virgin for liberation of the city of Bologna from the plague epidemic of 1630. The painting subsequently entered the Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna