Saint Roch
Author: Unknown
Date: 18th century
Material: Gilded and polychromed wood
Dimensions (cm): H 91 x W 38 x D 29
Provenance: Guimarães, Capela de São Roque
Inventory No.: MAS E 63
Image of Saint Roch, dressed as a pilgrim, with a crook and a calabash, accompanied by a dog licking the wound caused by the plague. He is one of the saints who protects against the plague.
According to the legend, Roch was born in Montpellier (France), around 1350, with a small cross on the chest. After his parents’ death, he distributed all his fortune to the indigent and to the hospitals and he became a pilgrim, travelling to Rome (Italy).
When he arrived to Acquapendente, in the province of Viterbo (Italy), he found the village beset with the plague. He comforted the diseased people and cured them by drawing the sign of the cross on them.
After returning from this pilgrimage, he fell ill with the plague and to avoid infecting others, he withdrew into a forest, where a dog supplied him with bread every day.
Saint Roch is the patron saint of the victims of the plague. The spread of the worship to this saint is late due to the already widespread devotion to Saint Sebastian, who also invoked against the plague.
Saint Roch is one of the saints that is easier to identify. He is usually represented wearing pilgrim’s clothes, sometimes with the scallop shell that is typical of the Compostela (Spain) pilgrims, and with a long staff from which a calabash hangs. He presents a naked knee, where one can see a wound that is treated by an angel and he is accompanied by the dog that feeds him.
His feast day is on 16 August.