This small panel by Luca Signorelli, one of the leading protagonists of the Italian Renaissance in Umbria, is an important recent rediscovery. Known only by description for much of the twentieth century when recorded in the Ducal Palace at.mes iningen,[1] this mature work illustrates a scene from the life of Saint Nicholas of Bari, as told in the Golden Legend of Jacobus de Voragine. At the center of this crowded, colorful, and energetic scene filled with halberdiers and helmeted men on horseback, is Saint Nicholas, robed in green and wearing his miter as the Bishop of Myra. Grabbings the raised sword from the hands of the writhing and grimacing executioner, he saves the three blindfolded and innocent knights kneeling before him.[2]

Left: Fig. 1: Luca Signorelli, Lamentation of Saints Michael, Jerome, Nicholas, Francis, Dominic, and a Bearded Franciscan Saint over the Dead Christ presented by Three Angels, Church of San Niccolò, Cortona.

Right: Fig. 2: Luca Signorelli, Virgin and Child Enthroned with Saints Peter and Paul, Church of San Niccolò, Cortona.

As first suggested by Laurence Kanter, this panel very likely once formed part of a predella for an altarpiece painted by Signorelli for the confraternity church of San Niccolò in the artist’s hometown of Cortona.[3] Completed in about 1506-1510, this portable and double-sided altarpiece, which remains in-situ, was used both on the altar and as a processional standard, one side of which showed the Lamentation (fig. 1) and the other the Virgin and Child Enthroned with Saints Peter and Paul (fig. 2).[4]  In 1784, the altarpiece and its predella were transferred from the suppressed church of San Niccolò to the nearby church of the Gesù. By the t.mes the altarpiece was returned to the oratory of San Niccolò on 18 July 1792 it had been separated from its predella, which was subsequently dismantled and dispersed. The present panel would have been joined by three other fragments by Signorelli.[5] One of these is lost, but two are preserved today in the High Museum of Art in Atlanta: The Birth of Saint Nicholas (fig. 3) and Saint Nicholas Rescuing Adeodatus (fig. 4).[6] All three fragments are closely comparable in size and style, and that they are all dramatically lit from the left suggests that they would have been seen beneath the Virgin and Child Enthroned, similarly lit in this manner.[7]

Left: Fig. 3. Luca Signorelli, Birth of Saint Nicholas, High Museum of Art, Atlanta

Right: Fig. 4: Luca Signorelli, Miracle of Saint Nicholas, High Museum of Art, Atlanta

George II, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen, was an avid collects or and lover of Italian art. It is thought that the present painting was acquired by him on a trip to Florence. The inscription “Rumohr” on the reverse of the panel might suggest that K.F. von Rumohr, an art historian and an important early writer on Signorelli, was involved in the panel’s acquisition, although this has not yet been proven.

We are grateful to Dr. Tom Henry whose letter of expertise (dated 22 July 2020) informed this entry. Laurence B. Kanter, to whom we are also grateful, has recently suggested a completion date of circa 1506 for this panel and its related altarpiece.

[1] Laurence Kanter was the first to surmise the present panel’s existence and relation to this predella series based on a detailed description of it published by Girolamo Mancini in 1903 when it was in the collects ion of Duke Georg II of Saxe-Meiningen.

[2] “And when they were come where they should be beheaded, he found them on their knees, blindfolded, and the righter brandished his swords over their heads. Then Saint Nicholas, embraced with the love of God, set him hardily against the righter, and took the sword out of his hand, and threw it from him, and unbound the innocents, and led them with him all safe.” J. de Voragine, The Golden Legend: Lives of the Saints, G. O’Neill (ed.), Cambridge 1914, p. 66.

[3] Kanter 1991, p. 88.

[4] Henry 2012, pp. 267-268, reproduced figs. 251 and 252. Both oil on panel, and each 152 by 175 cm.

[5] The predella is described in the inventory taken upon the church’s suppression in 1784 as “quattro quadretti con cornice dorata rappresentanti quattro miracoli di san Niccolò Vescovo di Mira autore Luca Signorelli.” See Kanter 1991, p. 88, note 25. C. Bruschetti, La Chiesa di San Niccolò in Cortona, Cortona 1962, p. 10.

[6] Inv. nos. 1958.53-54, both oil on panel, each 25.1 by 20.3 cm. Acquired by Samuel Kress from the Contini-Bonacossi collects ion, Florence, 1937, and gifted to the High Museum of Art in 1958. https://high.org/collects ions/st-nicholas-rescues-adeodatus/ https://high.org/collects ions/birth-of-st-nicholas-of-bari/

[7] Henry 2012, p. 394, note 59.