西元 2020 年，新冠肺炎（COVID–19）的肆虐，勾起了人類過去面對瘟疫時的恐懼。儘管現代醫學發達，仍有眾多人口死於這場大型流行病中。「人們不再知曉該求助於哪位聖人」，這句義大利特有的俗語指出了古老教會傳統的重要，即信徒在日常生活中若有心靈上的需要，便會尋求相對應的主保聖人，以獲得庇佑守護。
在各種護佑民眾免於瘟疫所害的聖人中，最著名且受諸多信徒祈求保佑的就是聖人洛克。聖洛克是十四世紀來自蒙彼利埃（Montpellier）的法國人，他離家並踏上朝聖之路，前往羅馬以及其他義大利城市，停留期間，聖洛克只要在瘟疫患者的身上劃一個十字聖號，就能夠治癒他們，而後他自己雖也不幸染上瘟疫，卻奇蹟般地痊癒了。最後，他在沒有被家人認出的情況下死於牢獄中。
聖洛克的聖髑目前存放於義大利威尼斯一座供奉他的教堂中，而毗鄰該座教堂的聖洛克大會堂（Scuola Grande di San Rocco），其內部的繪畫是由風格主義時期（Mannerism）的威尼斯畫派畫家雅科波．羅布斯蒂（Jacopo Robusti, 1518/19–1594）進行裝飾。羅布斯蒂又以丁托列托 （Tintoretto）之名更為人所熟知。
義大利至少有三千座獻給聖洛克的教堂，因此我們時常可在許多繪畫、祭壇畫、壁畫與雕像中發現聖洛克的身影。透過本文，我們將一同了解聖洛克的個人形象與他的聖像特徵（大腿上的淋巴腺腫、身旁的天使與嘴咬麵包的狗），以及偉大的威尼斯畫家丁托列托又是如何以畫筆於十六世紀的威尼斯藝術中呈現這位對抗瘟疫的聖人。
During 2020, the year characterized by the Covid-19 pandemic, many remembered the plagues humanity endured in the past. During an epidemic in which so many people die despite medical advances, "you no longer know which saint to turn to." This verbal expression from the Italian language indicates an ancient tradition in the church, that of the patron saints the faithful rely on and ask for help from various life situations.
Among the various "anti-plague" saints, the most famous and most invoked is Saint Roch. He was a fourteenth century French man from Montpellier who left his father's house to become a pilgrim. He went to Rome and then to other Italian cities
where he healed plague patients simply with the sign of the cross. He himself then fell ill with the plague and miraculously was healed. Later he died in prison, not recognized by his own family members.
His body is now in Venice, Italy, preserved in a church totally dedicated to him, together with the adjacent building Scuola Grande di San Rocco. Both are decorated especially by Jacopo Robusti (1518/19-1594) better known as Tintoretto, a
painter of the Venetian school of the Mannerist period.
In Italy alone, there are at least three thousand churches dedicated to the saint. It is therefore easy to find him represented in many paintings, altarpieces, frescoes and statues. But how may one recognize him? This article introduces the figure of Saint Roch, his iconographic attributes (such as the dog with the bread, the bubo on the thigh, and the angel) and how he is represented in Venetian figurative art of the 1500s by the great artist Tintoretto.