predella con storie di s. stefano

Bernardo Daddi painted this predella with scenes from the life of Saint Stephen around 1345, a narrative strip designed to sit beneath the main panels of a larger altarpiece. Predella panels offered painters the opportunity for vivid narrative storytelling in a compact format, and Daddi excelled at these intimate scenes. The predella's location in the Pinacoteca Vaticana reflects centuries of collecting that brought Florentine Gothic masterworks to the papal collections.

Egg tempera on a long horizontal panel with gold ground and multiple narrative compartments. Daddi's predella technique features miniaturist precision combined with clear spatial organization, allowing each episode to be read sequentially while maintaining visual cohesion.