15 Works, Today, May 5th. is artist Teofilo Patini’s day, his story, illustrated with footnotes #124
Buon samaritano/ Good Samaritan, c. 1885
Oil on canvas
119 x 158 cm
Banca Popolare Adriatico, Pesaro
The parable of the Good Samaritan is a didactic story told by Jesus in Luke 10:25–37. It is about a traveler who is stripped of clothing, beaten, and left half dead alongside the road. First a priest and then a Levite comes by, but both avoid the man. Finally, a Samaritan comes by. Samaritans and Jews generally despised each other, but the Samaritan helps the injured man. Jesus is telling the parable in response to the question from a lawyer, “And who is my neighbour?” whom that should be loved. Jesus answers his question in who is his neighbour, but also tells him to love his neighbour.
The parable has inspired painting, sculpture, satire, poetry, and film. The colloquial phrase “good Samaritan”, meaning someone who helps a stranger, derives from this parable, and many hospitals and charitable organizations are named after the Good Samaritan. More on the Good Samaritan
Teofilo Patini (Castel di Sangro, Abruzzo May 5, 1840 — Naples, November 16, 1906) was an Italian painter, active in a Realist style.
He was born to a landowning family of some wealth. In 1855, he began classical studies in Sulmona under the Latin scholar, Leopoldo Dorrucci. Patini’s father had taken a position as chancellor of the Royal Judiciary in that town. He acquired a diploma of “Belle Lettere”, and then enrolled in the University of Naples to study philosophy, then transferred to study at the Academy of Fine Arts in Naples. This move, however, was not approved by his family.