Bigallo Triptych

Bernardo Daddi's Bigallo Triptych belongs to one of the most significant civic devotional commissions in Trecento Florence, created for the Compagnia del Bigallo that cared for abandoned children. The portable triptych format, with its hinged wings protecting the central devotional image, combined with the civic charity function of its institutional patron to create an object that served both private devotion and public witness. Daddi's triptych demonstrates how Florentine Trecento painting served not just ecclesiastical and aristocratic patronage but the emerging civic institutions that were transforming the governance and social life of Italian communes.

The triptych format with pointed Gothic arches frames the figures in an intimate scale suited to confraternity devotion. Daddi's technique combines Giottesque solidity of form with a refined, miniaturist precision in the gold tooling and delicate facial features characteristic of his mature style.