Saint Jean Évangéliste, saint Louis de Toulouse et la donatrice, Catarina dei Franzesi

Tommaso del Mazza painted this panel showing Saint John the Evangelist, Saint Louis of Toulouse, and the female donor Catarina dei Franzesi as part of his activity in late Trecento Florence. The inclusion of Saint Louis of Toulouse, a Franciscan bishop canonized in 1317, alongside the named donor indicates a commission connected to Franciscan patronage networks. The identification of the donor by name was an increasingly common practice in fourteenth-century Italian panel painting, reflecting growing individual piety.

Tempera on gold-ground panel with the refined linear style characteristic of the Orcagnesque school in late fourteenth-century Florence. The figures are arranged frontally with careful attention to hierarchical scale, their draperies falling in elegant, rhythmic folds enhanced by tooled haloes and patterned textiles.