Last Miracle and the Death of Saint Zenobius

The Last Miracle and the Death of Saint Zenobius from circa 1500 at Dresden is part of a series depicting the life of Florence's patron bishop, painted in Botticelli's final period. Zenobius, Bishop of Florence in the late fourth and early fifth centuries, had performed numerous miracles including the famous restoration of a dead child to life. The series—typically four panels—narrated his miracles and death with the intimate narrative format and late-period emotional gravity that characterized Botticelli's final work. The Zenobius series had particular significance for Florentine civic identity, the saint's patronage of the city connecting Botticelli's religious content to local pride in ways that would have resonated with his Florentine patrons even in the troubled 1490s.

The narrative panels are rendered with the angular, expressive drawing of Botticelli's late style, the miraculous events and the saint's death depicted with an emotional intensity that marks the final phase of his artistic development.