Franz Ignaz Count of Inzaghi, Ptuj Parish Archpriest and Dean, and the Veneration of St Victorinus, First Bishop of Poetovio Known by Name

Abstract

From 1731 until his death, Franz Ignaz Count of In- Inzaghi (1691–1768) was the archpriest and dean of the parish church of St George in Ptuj. The paper aims to refresh our knowledge of the Counts’ contribution to the appearance and furnishings of the church, while it also points out Inzaghi’s efforts to obtain the Pope’s permission for the veneration of St Victorinus, the first Latin exegete and the first bishop in Poetovio known by name, who died as a martyr in 303 AD. The contribution presents the current state of research on Early Christianity in Poetovio, St Victorinus and the Inzaghi family, while it focuses on the arrangement of the chapel of Our Lady of Sorrows and the ceiling painting in the chapel, the work of Ptuj painter Franz Anton Pachmayer and his assistant Anton Lerchinger (1741). The author attempted to recognize the iconographic program of the painting, which she compared to St Victorinus’ comment of the Apocalypse. She set a hypothesis that St Victorinus and several people from the Old Testament, whom he discussed, are depicted in the southern side field.