Lunette of the main portal

Andriolo de Santi is first documented on 7 November 1342 while working on the portal of San Lorenzo in Vicenza. He was master mason of this Franciscan commission, carried out between 1342 and 1345, and received the highest salary for the execution of two portals, despite the fact that he spent most of his time in Venice. The side portal was destroyed, but the main portal, forming part of the first major Franciscan fa�ade, survives.

For the first time in the Veneto a devotional image was placed on a church portal: the Virgin and Child with Sts Francis and Lawrence and the Donor Pietro da Marano (d. before 27 Sept 1342). Pietro da Marano, called the Dwarf, hoped with this act of generosity to get rid of the burden of a lived life by practicing usury. He is represented in the lunette kneeling in a repentant attitude before Mary and the Child.

In the framing interlaced acanthus there are five busts of the prophets on the left side, and five busts of Patriarchs on the right side. On the architrave in the centre is Christ blessing. On his right are Sts Vincent, Louis of Toulouse, Francis of Assisi and John the Evangelist, on the left Lawrence of Rome, Anthony of Padua, Clare and Stephen, four figures of tradition, four of the Franciscan repertoire.