Assumption of the Virgin
ca. 1440
tempera and gold on wood
painted surface: 85.8 x 50.2 cm
Inv. 55.185
The representation of the Assumption of the Virgin was very popular in 15th-century Siena. The reason for this was the special veneration with which San Bernardino, the famous Sienese Franciscan saint of the time, regarded a depiction of this subject. The work in question, now destroyed, was painted about a century earlier by Simone Martini, one of the greatest Sienese masters, over the fore-gate (antiporto) of the Porta Camollia, the northern city gate opening towards Florence. According to the contemporaries, San Bernardino often went out to pray in front of the image, and he even ordered a copy of it for the high altar of the church of the Observant Franciscan friary he founded. The theme was painted by almost all of the Sienese artists of the time. In these, the Virgin ascends through a ring of angels to Heaven, where God the Father greets her. At the bottom St. Thomas appears and asks a proof from the Virgin for her miraculous assumption. In answer to this request, Mary unfastens and drops her belt to the doubtful apostle. The belt became the most famous Marian relic; it is now a treasure of the Cathedral in Prato.
D.S.
