The Martyrdom of St Livinus

According to his legend, the Irish- or Scots-born monk Livinus was a seventh-century bishop of Ghent and a martyr whose tongue was torn out by an angry mob in the village of Esse, in modern-day Belgium. Rubens depicted Livinus' torture very literally. The viewer is spared not a single horrible detail — neither the blood-spattered knife, nor the soldier who is holding the saint’s torn-out tongue in a pair of tongs above the barking dog. It's thought this painting was commissioned by the Jesuit church in Ghent to commemorate the millennial anniversary of the martyrdom itself, in 1633.