The episodes from the life of Saint Ambrose were commissioned from Juan de Valdés Leal (1622-1690) by Ambrosio Ignacio Spínola y Guzmán (1632-1684), Archbishop of Seville, for his private oratory. They are markedly specular in nature given that the saint and archbishop share the same name, ecclesiastical rank and connections with northern Italy. The series was conceived by Spínola as a model of exemplary behaviour to the extent that the settings evoke the streets and churches of Seville and the saint’s features are those of the archbishop.

In 370 the Consul Probus appointed Saint Ambrose governor of the provinces of Liguria and Emilia in northern Italy. Valdés Leal depicts this secular episode in an interior with classical architecture, thus creating a deliberate contrast with the Gothic architecture used for the other scenes in this series, which focus on the principal events in Ambrose’s religious life.

The series remind us of an aspect of the art of this period that is sometimes overlooked, namely that painting was an essentially narrative language which, with regard to the type considered superior at the time, had the purpose of recounting a story. This was frequently a sequential or serial narrative, which is sometimes difficult to appreciate today as many of these series have been broken up.