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The Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints John the Baptist, Mary Magdalene, Augustine and Martha and the Madonna of the Humility with Saints Andrew and Prosper


Current location: Civic Museum
Address: Piazza Duomo, San Gimignano

The Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints John the Baptist, Mary Magdalene, Augustine and Martha, Civic Museum, San Gimignano.

The Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints John the Baptist, Mary Magdalene, Augustine and Martha, Civic Museum, San Gimignano.

Benozzo stayed in San Gimignano for about four years and, after working on the cycle of frescoes surrounding the choir of the Church of Saint Augustine, he resided "at the house of Bartolo di Gimignano", the home of the Mainardi, one of the most eminent local families, into which the painter Bastiano, a pupil and, later, the son-in-law of Domenico Ghirlandaio, was born. Benozzo almost certainly also set up his studio in that house, where he did several paintings on wood panel: the Madonna Enthroned with Child between Saints John the Baptist, Mary Magdalene, Augustine and Martha, created in 1466 for the convent church of Saint Mary Magdalene and now housed in the Civic Museum, and another altarpiece with the Madonna of Humility between Saints Andrew and Prosper which was commissioned from him in 1466 by Girolamo Niccolai, priest and the rector of the church of Sant'Andrea, a small outlying parish of the town. Lastly, also dating from this period are two compartments of a predella which forms part of a so-far untraced altarpiece. One depicting Saint Fina with Saint Mary Magdalene and the other Saint Jerome with Saint Barth, preserved respectively in Avignon, at the Musée du Petit Palais, and Madrid, in the Thyssen Collection.