Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index



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  • Title: Reliquary tabernacle with scenes from the legend of St. Fina, front
  • Creator: Gerini, Lorenzo (a.k.a. Lorenzo di Niccolò Gerini, Lorenzo di Niccolo di Pietro Gerini), painter
  • Description: Fina is the patron saint of San Giminano. She was born to an impoverished family and devoted herself to an ascetic life. At the age of ten, she fell ill and suffered self-imposed hardships for five years before dying on the feast day of St. Gregory, 1253. Legend says that before she died, Gregory the Great appeared to her in a vision and announced her imminent death. On the front of this tabernacle commissioned to hold Fina's reliquary bust , St. Gregory and St. Fina stand side-by-side on the two central panels. They are flanked by four narrative scenes from St. Fina’s legend, which depict the events that occurred after Fina succumbed to paralysis and began lying on her wooden board. The narratives read separately and chronologically from the upper right to the lower left-hand corner; Fina’s mother offering food to Fina, which she denies while her neighbors watch; Fina enduring a vision of a demon killing her mother; the arrival of the townspeople at Fina’s house following her death while flowers bloom on her board and church bells ring in the background; the body of Fina being taken to the church while her hand miraculously heals the hand of Beldia, the woman who held Fina’s head during her illness.
  • Source: Wikimedia Commons
  • Rights: Public domain
  • Subject (See Also): Fina of San Gimignano, Saint Gregory I the Great, Pope, Saint Hagiography Women in Religion
  • Geographic Area: Italy
  • Century: 15
  • Date: 1401-1402
  • Related Work: Reliquary tabernacle of St. Fina, back. See the four panels of miracle scenes and two larger portraits: http://fe.fondazionezeri.unibo.it/catalogo/scheda.jsp?decorator=layout&apply=true&tipo_scheda=F&id=11529&titolo=Alinari%2c+Fratelli+%2c+SAN+GIMIGNANO+-+Museo+Civico.+Storie+della+vita+di+S.+Fina.+(Lorenzo+di+Niccol%f2+di+Pietro+Gerini)+-+insieme
  • Current Location: Museo d'Arte Sacra, San Gimignano
  • Original Location:
  • Artistic Type (Category): Digital Images; Paintings
  • Artistic Type (Material/Technique): Reliquaries; Wood
  • Donor:
  • Height/Width/Length(cm): 7.5 m/4.0 m/
  • Inscription:
  • Related Resources: Linda A. Koch, The Portrayal of Female Sainthood in Renaissance San Gimignano: Ghirlandio's Frescoes of Santa Fina's Legend, Artibus et Historiae 19, 38 ( 1998): Pages 143 - 170.