The sheetlet reproduces the work of Flemish painter Adriaen Isenbrant, housed in the Church of St. Pancras in Genoa, entrusted to the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.

The triptych consists of three panels depicting scenes from the life of St. Pancras inspired by the stories of the Golden Legend by Jacobus de Voragine. The left panel, which contains a €2.90 stamp, depicts St. Peter the Apostle in the foreground, holding the keys to the Kingdom of God and the Golden Legend. In the background is the scene of the young Pancras leaving his native palace.

The central panel, which contains a €3.25 stamp, frames the main scene, in which Christ the Redeemer is surmounted by the Holy Spirit and the Eternal Father; on the right, St. John the Evangelist, holding a chalice and a dragon, and on the left, a young St. Pancras, represented with a falcon, symbolising his noble origins; below, prostrate at his feet, is Emperor Diocletian, who ordered his martyrdom in the 3rd century, when the Saint was a boy of just over fourteen years of age. In the background is the city of Rome, where the martyrdom took place, and some of its monuments can be recognised.

Finally, the panel on the right-hand side, which contains the other €2.90 stamp, depicts St. Paul the Apostle in the foreground with his sword, a distinctive symbol of his iconography, and in the background, the scene of Pancras’ martyrdom, with his beheading on the Via Aurelia.

Each stamp is completed by the inscriptions “SOVRANO MILITARE ORDINE DI MALTA”, “POSTE MAGISTRALI”, the emblem of the Order’s activities and the corresponding face value.

The sheetlet also bears the heading at the top centre on two lines: “SOVRANO MILITARE ORDINE DI MALTA”, “POSTE MAGISTRALI”, the Order’s coat of arms on the left and that of its activities on the right; at the bottom centre, on two lines, the legend “IL TRITTICO DI SAN PANCRAZIO”, “Adriaen Isenbrant, olio su tavola, 1520 ca., Chiesa di San Pancrazio, Genova”.

Credits: Delegation of Genoa and Liguria of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.