On 22nd July 1652, Bartolome Esteban Murillo testified before the Archbishop of Seville during canonisation hear- ings for Fernando III, the medieval king of Castile and Le6n who had 'reconquered' Seville for the Christian Crown in 1248.' The painter declared that ever since he had enjoyed 'use of reason', he had seen 'infinite portraits' of the saintly monarch in many houses, churches and convents in and around Seville (see the Appendix below, Document 2). Indeed, Murillo was surrounded by images of San Fernando all his life, and encounters with his home-town's patron saint marked distinct stages in his career. Art historians have anatomised Murillo's contributions to the elaborate fiestas staged in honour of the new cult dedicated to San Fernando in 1671.2 Less well known, however, is the painter's involvement in the actual canonisation proceedings of the late 1640s and early 1650s, which is recorded in detail in the documents presented here. These documents give a new context for the artist's later work as a painter for the cathedral, and an analysis of them yields some suggestions about the role of images as historical evidence in the seventeenth century.3

In 1869, Dante Gabriel Rossetti wrote with enthusiasm both to his mother and to Jane Morris about the 'extraordinary architectural works' by Sara Losh, 'a church of a byzantine style and other things', which he had just visited in the village of Wreay, outside Carlisle. Her designs were, he said, 'full of beauty and imaginative detail, though extremely severe and simple', much more original 'than the things done by the young architects now'. Losh, he added, 'must have been a really great genius, and should be better known'. He thought her buildings so advanced that he expressed the wish that Philip Webb, the designer of William Morris's Red House, could come to Wreay and see them for himself. Losh, he wrote, was 'entirely without systematic study as an architect, but her practical as well as inventive powers were extraordinary'.'