Allegory of the Massacre of the Innocents, by Pietro Testa

The scene of the Massacre of the Innocents is taken from the New Testament, mentioned only by Matthew (Mt 2:16–18) following the episode of the flight into Egypt. It is a terse passage, recounting how King Herod decided to have all boys under the age of two born in the vicinity of Bethlehem killed, because the Magi had told him of the birth in that town of a child destined to become the King of the Jews. The scene has inspired many painters from various periods, including Guido Reni (1575–1642), Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640) and Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665)…

Pietro Testa (1611–1650) was an artist from Tuscany, best known for his work as an engraver and draughtsman, though he also had a modest career as a history painter. He thus frequented the studio of Pietro da Cortona in Rome, from which he was soon excluded. He associated with artists and scholars who, like himself, were interested in the classical tradition. He did not achieve success in the field of painting, despite developing his own distinctive style based on the influence of Caravaggio and Domeniquin, whilst rejecting the slavish imitation of nature for which he criticised the Caravaggisti.

He depicted classical subjects drawn from Greco-Roman mythology and history, much like his friend, the French painter Nicolas Poussin, who also painted a very different ‘Massacre of the Innocents ’ (Chantilly, Musée Condé): the setting of an ancient temple forming a rigorous architectural frame, beneath a cloudy yet intensely blue sky.  The savagery is silent and cold, with the scene simplified to emphasise the intensity of the passions. Unlike Nicolas Poussin, Testa’s work employs all the pictorial devices of tragedy: the scene is set at night; a beam of light suddenly illuminates the back, arm and foot of the man slitting a child’s throat and pushing away a distraught mother, forming a triangle within the composition. A woman and putti appear in the midst of this gloomy scene, reminiscent of the cloud ‘machineries’ of^{seventeenth-century} theatre. The dark hues foreshadow the paintings of the 1640s, characterised by pronounced chiaroscuro, austere classicism, rigid forms and broken rhythms.

The canvas housed at Aulteribe Castle is a variation, of almost identical dimensions to *The Allegory of the Massacre of the Innocents* in the Spada Gallery in Rome. The two works differ only in the more sketchy depiction of the flight of the Christ Child and his parents in the background of the Aulteribe version. This may suggest that it is an autograph version. This hypothesis is supported by Eric Pagliano, whilst Angiola Caneveri and Giulia Fusconi regard it merely as a fine^17th-century copy.

Angiola Caneveri and Giulia Fusconi, Pietro Testa e la nemica fortuna: un artista filosofo (1612–1650) tra Lucca e Roma, Rome , 2014, IV.11.

Eric Pagliano, *L’atelier de l’œuvre: Italian drawings from the Musée Fabre*, Montpellier , 2013, p. 190.