Totila before Saint Benedict

Benozzo Gozzoli's Totila before Saint Benedict, painted around 1468 and now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, depicts an episode from the life of the founder of Western monasticism in which the Ostrogoth king Totila visited Benedict at his monastery of Monte Cassino. This narrative was part of Gozzoli's extensive pictorial engagement with hagiographic subjects, which he treated with the colorful storytelling ability that made him one of the most popular painters of his generation.

Gozzoli's narrative approach features clearly staged figures in an architectural setting, with the bright, decorative coloring and anecdotal detail that characterize his storytelling style inherited from Fra Angelico's workshop.