Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints

Among the Sacred, the Most Human Faces

The painting is filled with women.
One holds a flower,
another cradles a musical instrument,
and still another gazes quietly at a young lamb.

And at the very center, enthroned highest of all, sit the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child.

This work was created as an altarpiece for the chapel of a women's hospital in Florence.

Perhaps for that reason, the figures who populate the panel are composed largely of female saints.

Stories Hidden Within Small Symbols

The building behind the Virgin and Child represents the Church.
Also worth noting is the beehive carried by the young John below.

John the Baptist is said to have led an ascetic life of simplicity,
and the honey he ate is here rendered as a beehive.

The women on either side are personifications of "Christian Charity" and "Self-Reflection."

And the saints arrayed in the lower row each carry their own identifying attribute.

Pincers, eyes, a musical instrument, a flower, a lamb…

To people of that era, such symbols alone were enough to identify each saint at a glance.

Most striking is the broken wheel held by Saint Catherine of Alexandria — an emblem of the martyrdom she endured.

The People Who Brought a Painting Back to Life

In truth, this work had suffered severe deterioration over the centuries.
A major restoration was undertaken in 2003 to address that damage.

Remarkably, the patrons who funded that restoration were none other than the actor and director Mel Gibson and his then-wife.

Thanks to their support, we are able to stand before this painting once again.

When one thinks about it, art has always survived through the attention and patronage of someone who cared.

Centuries ago, there were patrons like the Medici family;
today, it is someone else who steps forward to safeguard a painting.

To stand before an old painting, then,
may in fact be to encounter the unbroken thread of devotion woven by countless hands across time.