Pinacoteca Room III

In Benozzo Gozzoli’s Madonna of the Girdle, Mary hands a sash down to Thomas. The gesture refers to a Christian tradition in which Thomas receives evidence that Mary has been taken into heaven. A small strip of cloth connects figures placed in different parts of the painting. Gozzoli painted the altarpiece around 1450 for a church in Montefalco. He had trained with Fra Angelico, whose works are also gathered in this room. The two painters’ names let you compare a teacher and pupil without expecting every picture to look alike. Fra Angelico’s St Nicholas panels belonged to a triptych made for San Domenico in Perugia in 1437. Several events from the saint’s life appear within each small panel, including gifts, meetings and rescues. Take one episode at a time. In his Madonna with St Dominic and St Catherine, the closer grouping of a few figures gives the image another scale of encounter.