Saint Roch

Saint Roch's was, as Saint Sebastian, broadly acknowledged plague-saint in the Renaissance. 

He was born in the thirteenth century in Montpellier, southern France, and after his parents' death embarked on a pilgrimage to Rome. During the years spent in Italy, he cured many sick-people by the touch of his hand or the sign of the cross. He also freed many Italian cities afflicted by the plague. Eventually, he himself contracted the disease, and expelled from the city retreat in the countryside. He would have died of starvation if a dog had not brought him bread untill he fully recovered. On the road back to his hometown, Roch was unjustly arrested as a spy. After his death in prison, an angel left a tablet with godly-inspired inscription under Roch's head, which officially assigned him the title of protector against pestilence. 

Saint Roch's popularity increased significantly after the venetian Francesco Diedo composed the hagiographic text Vita Sancti Rochi, telling the life of the saint. Diedo wrote the text as a thanks-offer to pay his vow to Saint Roch, who interceded to stop the plague in the city of Brescia in 1478. In 1485 the relics of the Saint were transferred to Venice, and a Church was built to host them by the venetian confraternity founded in his name, firmly establishing Saint Roch cult.

Iconography

Saint Roch is usually depicted in pilgrim clothes: a pilgrim hat, a walking stick and sometimes a pouch or travell-bag. Sometimes a scallop shell of St James, tipycal pilgrim's bages, is represented on his cloak or hat. He is often shown while performing the characteristic gesture of lifting his garment and exposing or pointing to the plague bubo on his leg. The bubo is the evident symptom of bubonic plague.

The dog carrying bread to Saint Roch is sometimes present, as well as the angel who visited the Saint while he was sick. The angels is sometimes represented taming Saint Roch's wounds, other times he poits at the sky, showing that Roch's healing comes from God. Saint Roch was the visual evidence that one could survive the disease.