Right Pilaster of an Altarpiece

The Right Pilaster of an Altarpiece from the Pratovecchio ensemble houses small saint figures or decorative elements in the vertical strip that framed the altarpiece's main panels. Pilasters in Italian Gothic and early Renaissance altarpieces often contained subsidiary saint figures, prophets, or ornamental motifs that reinforced the theological programme without competing with the main panels. These components of the Pratovecchio Altarpiece, though individually modest, are significant for their rarity — most complex altarpiece programmes have been broken apart, and the survival of multiple elements allows partial reconstruction of a specific devotional object.

Tempera and gold leaf on panel. The narrow vertical format of pilasters requires small-scale figure painting — individual saints are compressed into tight spaces that demand precise, miniaturistic handling. Ornamental gold tooling often fills the spaces between figures in pilaster programmes.