Martirio di San Fedele da Sigmaringa – Palazzo Comunale

Martyrdom of San Fedele da Sigmaringa

Oil on canvas, cm. 200×137

From the Convent of La Maddalena (Cappuccini)

Canvas painted with life-size figures. Saint Faithful kneeling is about to be martyred by three evildoers. Above two angels bring him the palm and the crown of martyrdom.

Francesco Brogi, Inventario Generale degli oggetti d’arte della provincia di Siena (1862-1865), Siena, 1897, p. 328

Fedele from Sigmaringen, at the time Markus Ray (Sigmaringen, 1 October 1577 – Seewis im Prättigau, 24 April 1622), belonged to the Order of Capuchin Friars and was a missionary in the Protestant area of Central Europe. He was attacked and killed during an anti-Austrian uprising in Switzerland and is venerated as a saint and martyr by the Catholic Church.

Born in a family of Flemish origin, he studied first at the Jesuit college in Fribourg, where he graduated in philosophy, then at the university of the same city, where he obtained his doctorate in utroque jure (on 7 May 1611): he began to devote himself to legal work, but he was soon disappointed by that profession, so the following year he decided to enter, together with his brother, among the Capuchins of the convent of Fribourg (4 October 1612) and was ordained a priest; further theological studies in Constance, he also became guardian of the convent in Rheinfelden, then of that in Freiburg and finally of that in Feldkirch.

Became famous soon because of some anti-calvinist and anti-zwinglian pamphlets (which have not been preserved), so much so that the bishop of Chur in 1614 asked him to form a group of missionary friars to try to contain the spread of Protestant ideas in his diocese. Fedele da Sigmaringen accepted the request only in 1621 and the following year the pontifical Congregation de Propaganda Fide (just established) appointed him Superior of the missions in Grisons: he traveled throughout the region preaching and inspiring conversions, Especially during the Lent of 1622.

On 24 April of the same year, he came from a church where he had just finished celebrating mass, was attacked by the crowd together with a group of Austrian soldiers and killed. The spread of the reformed doctrines in the region, in fact, had occurred mainly in an anti-Habsburg and autonomist function: Likewise, the Empire supported Catholicism mainly in order to protect the integrity of its territory and the supremacy of the house of Austria.