Gregorio Gamarra (1570?-1642) may have painted a series of "Apostles" for the Nazarene Church in Cuzco; only two paintings of the set survive. Most of his extant works are narrative panels (the history of the Franciscan Order, the Passion of Christ, the life of the Virgin Mary). Saint Sebastian is attributed to Gamarra based upon: the Mannerist colors and brocateado; countenances of the angels and saint; and Alto Peruvian penchant to include landscape in single-figure icons. The Early Christian soldier of Diocletian's praetorium, who was shot with arrows on the Palatine Hill, was invoked by Counter-Reformation Spain to ward off the "disease" of heresy. The powers attributed to the martyr had a genesis in the Roman belief that Apollo's golden arrows could cause illness. The Inca also drew an analogy between arrows and the rays of the sun god Inti. With his ancient armor, plumed helmet and "bastón de mando", a staff signifying the authority of the Viceroy, Gammarra's St. Sebastian exemplifies the blending of European and Indian cultures that occurred in the wake of the Conquest.

Dr. Barbara von Barghahn
Washington, D.C., 1992