Meering between Saint Rochus an Gothardus

Bartolomeo della Gatta's Meeting between Saints Rochus and Gothardus, dating to around 1480, belongs to a tradition of votive plague imagery that surged across Italy following successive epidemics throughout the fifteenth century. Saint Rochus was the preeminent intercessor against plague in late medieval devotion, while Gothardus served as a regional patron of travelers and pilgrims. Della Gatta was a Camaldolese monk who pursued a parallel career as painter, illuminator, and architect, working across Tuscany and Umbria and absorbing influences from Signorelli and Perugino. Now in Munich's Alte Pinakothek, the work offers a window into the intertwining of religious life and the fine arts in monastic culture. Its Early Renaissance style mediates between Florentine clarity and the narrative warmth of Umbrian devotional painting.

Della Gatta balances two standing saints in a symmetrical composition with a landscape unfolding behind them. The handling is precise and miniaturistic, reflecting his illuminator's training, with fine attention to textile texture and restrained atmospheric recession in the pale landscape behind the figures.