Saint Vincent

Gherardo Starnina's Saint Vincent, painted around 1410 for the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, depicts the deacon-martyr of Saragossa who was one of the most widely venerated saints in the Crown of Aragon. Starnina's own period working in Spain would have made him particularly aware of Vincentian devotion. This work belongs to the Early Renaissance, the transformative period in European art when painters first applied mathematical perspective, naturalistic figure modeling, and archaeological interest in antiquity to the inherited traditions of medieval devotional painting. The tension between Gothic grace and Renaissance structure gives art of this period a distinctive energy.

The deacon-saint is rendered in his liturgical vestments with Starnina's characteristic refined drawing and careful tempera technique, the figure set against gold ground in the standard format for altarpiece saint panels.