Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints Paul and Francis

Antoniazzo Romano painted this Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints Paul and Francis around 1487 for a Roman church. As Rome's leading painter, Antoniazzo served both papal and mendicant order patrons throughout the last decades of the fifteenth century. The pairing of Paul with Francis suggests a church affiliated with both apostolic authority and Franciscan devotion. 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.

Tempera on panel with Antoniazzo's characteristic gentle modeling and warm tonality. The enthroned Madonna flanked by saints follows the Roman devotional tradition that Antoniazzo preserved and refined.