Pinacoteca Room II

On one face of the Stefaneschi Triptych, a small cardinal carries a model of the painting itself. The patron, Cardinal Stefaneschi, offers that miniature version to St Peter. The object’s shape becomes part of its own story. Giotto and his assistants painted this work for old St Peter’s Basilica around 1320. Its two painted faces served people looking from different sides of an altar. You can begin with whichever face is visible to you and notice the different scale given to sacred figures and donors. Other works here once formed parts of larger ensembles. Gentile da Fabriano’s St Nicholas stories came from the lower panels of the Quaratesi altarpiece in Florence. Its other sections are now held in several collections. Simone Martini’s small blessing Redeemer may also have belonged above a larger work. A picture’s present frame does not always show the extent of the object for which it was made.