Saint Pierre

Lippo di Benivieni, a Florentine painter active at the turn of the fourteenth century and influenced by both Cimabue and the early Giotto, painted this image of Saint Peter around 1301. The apostle Peter, shown with his identifying keys, was the foundational figure of papal authority and among the most frequently depicted saints in Gothic Italian panel painting. The work is now in the Museum of Fine Arts of Rennes, France, evidence of the dispersal of Italian Gothic panels across European collections.

Painted in egg tempera on panel with gold ground, the figure of Saint Peter displays the transitional style between late Byzantine conventions and early Trecento naturalism. The modeling of the face shows tentative three-dimensionality while the drapery retains the linear schematism of the older tradition.