Sala dei Protettori

The Madonna with the Christ Child and Saint George

It is a lunette-shaped canvas showing Saint George wearing a breastplate in the foreground and, in the background, the Madonna with the Christ Child. At present, the painting is kept in the office of the President of the Authority. According to the records, the painting, before the restoration of the Palace at the end of the 19th century, was located on the second floor, in the Archive of the Bank of Saint George. It is not clear who the author is: in the first edition (1866) of the Artistic Guide to the City of Genoa (Guida Artistica per la città di Genova), Federico Alizieri attributed it to Domenico Fiasella, while in the second edition it was attributed to G.B. Carlone. The painting was transferred to the State Archives at the end of the 19th century in order to enable D'Andrade to restore the palace and was subsequently brought back to Palazzo San Giorgio in the early 20th century. During this last transfer, a note with "17th-century writing" bearing the name of Luciano Borzone was discovered on the back of the canvas. Recently, Crespi has been included among the possible authors. In recent years, the recent exhibitions on the Caravaggesques and Orazio and Artemisia Gentileschi, as well as the quality of the painting, especially with reference to significant parts (see the hands of Saint George and the figure of the Saint himself with respect to the Virgin) have raised the question of there being at least two different authors. Further food for thought is provided by Orazio Gentileschi's presence in Genoa during the time period when the painting was made, his documented friendship with Luciano Borzone and the surprising analogies with the figure of Valeriano in Gentileschi's Vision of Saint Cecilia, still preserved in Brera. These and other reasons have given rise to the need to gather as much information as possible in order to draw the attention of critics to the authorship of the painting, which could be reconsidered.