On screen, Federico Castelluccio was no saint. As a lead character on the hit television series The Sopranos, the actor played Furio Giunta, a mobster whose profession is killing people. Off screen, Castelluccio is now doing something saintly, though he has nothing to atone for. He is lending the favorite, and probably most valuable, painting in his personal collection, Saint Sebastian (c. 1632-34) by Giovanni Francesco Barbieri (a.k.a. Guercino, 1599-1666), to the Castello di Miradolo museum near Turin, Italy. There, this life-size, three-quarter view of the Christian martyr, beatific even while bound to a tree, will be featured in the exhibition Saint Sebastian: Beauty and Integrity in Art Between the 15th and 17th Centuries (on view through March 8).
“Of course, I’m honored that the painting is going to be…
