St Dominic Presiding Over an Auto da Fe, by Pedro Berruguete

 

https://www.museodelprado.es/en/the-collection/art-work/saint-dominic-guzman-presiding-over-an-auto-da-fe/5564d7cb-621f-437b-b2e8-001728590173

Marta María Postigo: 

I have choosen one of Pedro Berruguete´s masterpiece Saint Dominic Presiding over an Auto-da-fe (between circa 1493 and circa 1499) portrayed in Madrid Museo del Prado. This Castilian painter from Palencia has always got my attention since I enjoyed watching The Annunciation in Miraflores Charterhouse in my city, Burgos. 

I also got interested in Berruguete´s Saint Dominic Presiding over an Auto-da-fe because I have recently visited Saint Dominic´s birthplace, Caleruega. I also love encouraging my students to visit places around our city or area so they can learn new things travelling nearby during the pandemic.

This painting reflects an Inquisition trial and it is a good chronicle of life at the time of the Catholic Monarchs. As students in my school have bilingual classes in history, the painting is a good excuse to practise their vocabulary: social and political hierarchy, religious customs, dressing and habits in the 15th century,…

So I think that for my English classes I could use it for two purposes :

1. Elicit vocabulary about jobs and prepositions: 

- What does the man presiding the picture do for a living?” 

- What is the man reading´s job?” 

- What are the two men holding spears´job?

2. Conditional sentences practice and review of professions. 

Conditionals type 2 : 

If you were a warrior/ a priest/ a judge/ a peasant what would you do ?

Conditional types 3: 

If you had been a soldier/ a nun/ a bishop…. in the 15th century, what would you have done at that time?

Later on, we can share the painting background to develop their curiosity and will  travel.

The painting depicts the trial by Saint Dominic and six judges presiding and the torture of two victims tied up in the lower right tied to a post near a fire than will probably suffocate and burn them in short as soon as is set in fine. 

Other victims wait in line for their burning. The victims are allegedly Cathars as St Dominic fought against their prophesy in real life. Though the painting can lead our students to think of an Inquisition trial, he can be considered an inquisitor himself because he lived in the early 13th century. 

However, auto da fe´s were commonplace in Berruguete´s time and maybe he decided to criticise them by means of including drowsy and inattentive attendants.