Saint Anthony Abbot with Four Angels

Niccolò di Pietro Gerini's Saint Anthony Abbot with Four Angels (c. 1380) at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum depicts the Egyptian hermit saint who was the founding figure of Christian monasticism. Niccolò di Pietro Gerini was one of the most prolific and reliable painters in late Trecento Florence, executing numerous altarpiece commissions for churches, guilds, and confraternities. Saint Anthony Abbot was widely venerated as a protector against skin diseases and epidemic illness—a particularly resonant devotion in post-plague fourteenth-century Italy.

Tempera and gold on panel. Gerini's style is characterized by solid, clear figural drawing with firm contours, bright local colors, and carefully tooled gold haloes—a dependable, conservative Florentine workshop manner that prioritized devotional clarity.