The temptation of Thomas of Aquinas

This scene of the Temptation of Saint Thomas Aquinas by Bernardo Daddi, the leading Florentine panel painter of the 1330s-1340s, illustrates an episode from the life of the great Dominican theologian who had been canonized in 1323. According to hagiographic tradition, Thomas's family sent a temptress to dissuade him from religious life, but he drove her away with a firebrand. Created around 1338, this panel likely formed part of a predella or narrative altarpiece cycle celebrating Dominican saints.

Executed in egg tempera with gold ground on panel, the work demonstrates Daddi's characteristic blend of Giottesque spatial construction with a more lyrical, decorative sensibility influenced by Sienese painting. Figures are rendered with soft modeling and expressive gestures within a simply defined interior space.