Saint James the Greater by Dieric Bouts (Diocese of Funchal)

The Diocese of Funchal (Portugal) was founded 506 years ago and its history mixes with that of the archipelago of Madeira itself, rediscovered in 1418 and marked since then by Christian cultural heritage, identifiable in the different tangible and intangible cultural expressions of the area. The painting represents Saint James the Greater and is attributed to Dieric Bouts, a painter of the Flemish School, in the 15th century. The story of this artwork has parallelisms with our time: during the black plague epidemic in Madeira in 1521, some representatives of the people gathered in the cathedral to choose a Patron Saint to ask for intercession for the end of the plague; having chosen Saint James the Lesser, but unable to find an icon of the Saint, they turned to the painting of St. James the Greater and carried it in procession – a tradition that still continues today. The valuable painting is today conserved in the collection of the Museum of Sacred Art of Funchal. Not only is it a testimony of how people make a virtue out of necessity in difficult times and of the European dimension of Christian arts (in this case between Belgium and Portugal), but it also attests the veneration and importance of such artworks in times of hardship and adversity.