The ten thousand martyrs of Mount Ararat

Vittore Carpaccio (1515)

The ten thousand martyrs of Mount Ararat were, according to a medieval legend, Roman soldiers who, led by Saint Acacius, converted to Christianity and were crucified on Mount Ararat in Armenia by order of the Roman emperor. The story is attributed to the ninth century scholar Anastasius Bibliothecarius. In the Roman Catholic Church the martyrs are commemorated on March 18and June 22,according to entries in the Roman Martyrology. In the Greek Orthodox Church the Great Synaxaristes has a reference on June 1 for the "The Holy Ten Thousand Martyrs" in Antiochia, under the Roman Emperor Decius. Despite its questionable veracity, the event was extremely popular in Renaissance art, as seen for example in the painting 10,000 martyrs of Mount Ararat by the Venetian artist Vittore Carpaccio, or in the Martyrdom of the Ten Thousand by the German artist Albrecht Dürer.

The Grandes Heures of Anne of Brittany (1503-1508) illustrated by Jean Bourdichon

Albrecht Dürer (1508)