Viewing and commissioning Pietro Lorenzetti's Saint Humility Polyptych

The early fourteenth-century polyptych representing the life of Humility of Faenza (Florence, Uffizi and Berlin, Gemaldegalerie), and ascribed to Pietro Lorenzetti, places its subject within the medieval tradition of strong, independent abbesses. This characterisation of sanctity is dramatically different from that shown on the earlier (1281–1285) Santa Chiara Dossal (Assisi, Santa Chiara) where Saint Clare is set up as an example of a new type of female saint typified by her obedience to the male ecclesiastical hierarchy. The article examines the reasons for the iconographic choices made in the Humility Polyptych using, in the first section, the evidence of the polyptych itself and, in the second section, evidence concerning its location. The emphasis on the way in which Humility circumvents the constraints placed on her because of her sex and on her thaumaturgical powers indicates a strong relationship between iconography, commissioner, location and audience.

Ancient history · Art · Art history · Humility · Literature · Project commissioning · Publishing · SAINT · Theology · Historical and Religious Studies of Rome · History · Philosophy · Reformation and Early Modern Christianity · Renaissance and Early Modern Studies