St Judas Thaddeus Forced to Worship Idols

Two paintings in the Poldi Pezzoli Museum show scenes of the martyrdom of St Judas Thaddeus. In the first, the saint is forced to kneel in front of a pagan temple to worship an idol, which is in ruins on the ground, felled by the force of the true faith. In the second, the same person, bound and beaten, is being dragged into prison. The many similarities suggest the two panels belonged to the same complex: both compositions have been arranged almost symmetrically, with repetitions and variations. There is a column, or pillar, in both that divides the space into two: one part occupied by an architectural structure, the other showing the main action in the foreground with a road rising in the background towards a group of buildings, next to a balustrade with some onlookers.