Predella with Annunciation and Scenes from the Lives of Four Saints

This predella depicts defining events in the lives of the Madonna and Saints John the Baptist, Lawrence, Stephen, and Anthony of Padua, all represented on the main panel of an altarpiece now in a Roman private collection. Decorated pilasters capped with Corinthian capitals divide the predella into clearly defined scenes of martyrdom and wonder, while a verdant, mountainous landscape in the distance provides a rhythmic continuity of peaks and valleys that draws the eye across the panel’s individual narratives.

Traditionally the devotional focus of an altarpiece, the Virgin receives the widest section at the center of the predella with a depiction of the Annunciation, the moment when Mary’s destiny to bear the Christ Child is revealed to her by the Archangel Gabriel. Nicola places the four remaining scenes on either side of the Annunciation—just as the saints would appear on either side of the Madonna in the main panel. Significantly larger in scale and adorned with halos, the saints are clearly distinguished from the other figures in their respective scenes.