Saint Anthony of Padua

Saint Anthony of Padua, painted around 1484 and now in Modena's Galleria Estense, depicts the Franciscan friar born in Lisbon who became one of the most beloved saints of the Western Church — famous for his preaching, his miracles, and his particular protection of the poor and lost. Cosimo Tura served the Este court of Ferrara throughout his career, and the Galleria Estense — founded by the Este family — holds a significant body of Ferrarese Renaissance work including several of Tura's paintings. Anthony's attributes — the lily of purity, the book of the Gospels, sometimes the Christ child appearing on a book or flame — would have been rendered by Tura with his characteristic intensity and formal strangeness.

Tempera on panel with Tura's treatment of the saintly figure — the Franciscan habit's rough texture given the same metallic precision as silk or brocade in his other works, the saint's physiognomy distinctive among Ferrarese painting for its almost Gothic angular expressiveness, the pose combining formal devotional frontality with subtle psychological intensity.