Saints Giusto and Clemente Multiplying the Grain of Volterra

The Master of the Nativity of Castello's Saints Giusto and Clemente Multiplying the Grain of Volterra at the Philadelphia Museum depicts a local miracle from the patron saints of Volterra. The civic significance of this miracle, which saved the city from famine, made it an important subject for local devotional art. 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 miracle scene is set in a Tuscan landscape with citizens witnessing the multiplication of grain, rendered in the clear, luminous style of the Filippo Lippi circle with careful spatial construction.