Saint Sebastian Saint Sebastian. The belief that Saint Sebastian was a defense against the plague was a medieval addition to his reputation, which largely accounts for the enormous increase in his importance in the Late Middle Ages. The connection of the martyr shot with arrows with the plague is not an intuitive one, however. In Greco-Roman myth, Apollo, the archer god, at times destroys his enemies by shooting plague-arrows from the heavens, but is also the deliverer from pestilence; the figure of Sebastian Christianizes this folkloric association. Similar metaphors for divine displeasure occur in the Hebrew Bible. The hopeful example of Sebastian
Jacopo Pesaro being presented by Pope Alexander VI to Saint Peter Spanish royal collection after his execution, which loaned it to the convent of San Pasquale in Madrid. In 1823, it was in the collection of William I of the Netherlands, who gave it to the museum. Jacopo Pesaro being presented by Pope Alexander VI to Saint Peter Jacopo Pesaro being presented by Pope Alexander VI to Saint Peter is an oil painting on canvas by Titian, now in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp. It was commissioned by Bishop Jacopo Pesaro (b. 1460) as an ex-voto for the Venetian naval victory leading to the retaking of Santa Maura