Alonso Carrillo's Mass of St Gregory
Historical Context
This Mass of Saint Gregory, associated with Alonso Carrillo and dated around 1480, is now in the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. The Mass of Saint Gregory depicts the legendary miracle in which Christ appeared at the altar during a mass celebrated by Pope Gregory the Great, converting a doubter who questioned the Real Presence in the Eucharist. The subject was enormously popular in late medieval art, serving as visual propaganda for the doctrine of transubstantiation.
Technical Analysis
The painting demonstrates the Spanish approach to religious narrative with precise devotional imagery, using the characteristic combination of gold ground, vivid color, and narrative clarity of late 15th-century Iberian painting.
