The Miracle of St Michael on Mt Gargano
by BECCAFUMI, Domenico, Tempera on panel, 23 x 36 cm
This panel is one of the surviving two predella paintings which belonged to the altarpiece commissioned for the church of San Niccolò al Carmine, Siena. The predella depicted scenes from the legend of St Michael.
Most unusually, in these panels Beccafumi has abandoned the oil he used for the altarpiece for the old-fashioned, less flexible medium of tempera. It could be the influence of the newly discovered ancient Roman frescoes in the Baths of Titus which Beccafumi had seen in Rome.