A flag floating on one of the three arches of the ceiling that hides the Bible stories of Esther and Mardocheo presents a black eagle on the red background and has been read to date as an Habsburg flag. In fact, the Habsburg flag has never had a red, but open color background.
In the number CXCVIII, the third series 10 / II (2011) in the prestigious journal of science, literature and art is published an article by Lucia Nadin titled "Propositions of redesigns of Paolo Veronese's painting in St. Sebastian in Venice: Skanderbeg Athletes of Cristi and the Church of Albania."The article, accroding to the author is just a handful of studies that aim to put Albania in a special place in the wonderful art of Venice: the church of St. Sebastian, located in the Dorsoduro neighborhood, very famous as an autochthonous church: is a very rare example of a church where the decorative part is named after a solo artist: Paolo Caliari, Veronese, one of the greatest performers of Venetian painting of the 1500s.
This church is a symbolic place, a great Renaissance monument of international renown, known as the temple of the artist where he wanted to be buried. Unfortunately, a number of his frescoes have been destroyed over time.
The Veronese paintings on the ceiling of the sacristy, the walls and all the other ornaments were made in a period between 1555 and 1565. The whole cycle actually celebrated the triumph of the Faith / Church / Virgin Mary through the exemplary story of their martyr St. Sebastian.
The researcher, professor of Italian Literature at the State University in Tirana, starting from the date of the flag on the church ceiling, calling on the flag of Skanderbeg, described by Marin Barleti and confirmed by Konica in 1908 and then on the occasion of Albanian Independence in 1912: the two-eyed eagle on the red background.
Nadin reads metaphorically the adventures of Moardocheo, which fights for the salvation of the Jewish people, an event that according to her are adressed on Scanderbeg. She thus analyzes that all the celebration of St. Sebastian, a completely unknown way for the Venetian tradition, is not presented as the sanctuary of miracles, but as Miles Cristi, who faces Dioklezian, the great persecutor of Christians, and who goes to the safe martyrdom, for the triumph of the Church.
In St. Sebastian, Miles Cristi, represents metaphorically in this case the Gjergj Kastriot Skanderbeg, who was qualified by different popes as Athlete of Cristi, the protector of Western Christianity.
Goat head
At the ceiling of the church you will notice the head of a goat: it has in fact been one of the medieval animals, a symbol of Christ's foresight.
Skanderbeg's helmet is located in Vienna in Kunsthistorisches Museum. The head of the goat is known to be an embellishment of Skanderbeg's helmet that became king of his people followed by the intersections of Pope Pius II and tragically ended with the death of the pope in Ancona.
BUt it is about another Kastriot symbol, that is Albanian.
In St. Sebastian's martyrdom that is so revealing in the canvases of the presbytery, the author merely reads the martyrdom of the entire Albanian Church, and a specific character depicting a garment with the two-crown eagle crowned with the history of the family of Angels, known in history in the 50's of this century, and honored with the San Giorgio's Cavalry Order, a family that was engaged with the extraordinary courage to remember the historical memory of Albania.
In fact, we are awaiting Lucia Nadin's play on the St. Sebastian Church to discover an important site of Albanian history and a place in medieval art, in addition to being one of the works of one of the greatest European painters of all time: Paolo Veroneze.
We want to remind at the end of this writing the extraordinary discovery of Lucia Nadin in the Statuses of Shkodra, recovered by the researcher after seven centuries from the library and Museo Correr in Venice. An extraordinary contribution by the Italian scholar to Albania's history..