St. Nicholaus of Tolentino

Giovanni di Francesco's St. Nicholas of Tolentino, painted around 1452 and now in the Gemäldegalerie Berlin, depicts the Augustinian friar Nicholas, one of the most popular saints of the Italian devotional tradition — a mystic and healer canonized in 1446, just years before this painting was made, whose cult spread rapidly through the Augustinian order and lay confraternities across Italy. Nicholas of Tolentino's canonization in 1446 was a major event in Italian religious life, and Giovanni di Francesco's depiction reflects the immediate post-canonization enthusiasm for images of the new saint.

Tempera on panel. Saint Nicholas is shown in the black habit of the Augustinian friars with his characteristic attribute — typically a lily or loaves of bread that he miraculously multiplied, or the star that appeared to him at his vocation.