Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index



Click to view high resolution image

  • Title: Panel from the Humility Polyptych - Umilta cures a nun of a hemorrhage
  • Creator: Lorenzetti, Pietro, painter, attributed to
  • Description: Umiltà of Faenza (born Rosanese Negusanti) was an abbess and holy woman. In Florence, she founded the Monastery of San Giovanni Evangelista, a Vallombrosian house for women. This is one of the fourteen panels of the Humility Polyptych, which was constructed to celebrate Umiltà’s life and miracles. In this scene, Umiltà is miraculously curing an ailing nun of a hemorrhage. She is portrayed as a thaumaturgist here. The severity of the nun’s illness is conveyed by the other figures in the scene. In another room on the panel, a lay sister holds up a cup of blood to a physician who shrugs to indicate the impossibility of a cure. However at the same moment the physician proves to be useless, Umiltà intercedes on the nun’s behalf. With Umiltà’s benediction performed, the nun sits up from her sick bed completely restored to health.
  • Source: Wikimedia Commons
  • Rights: Public domain
  • Subject (See Also): Abbesses Hagiography Healers and Healing Miracles Monasticism Nuns Physicians Umilta of Faenza, Mystic and Saint Women in Religion
  • Geographic Area: Italy
  • Century: 14
  • Date: 1335-1340
  • Related Work: Humility Polyptych
  • Current Location: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
  • Original Location: Florence, Monastery of San Giovanni Evangelista, a Vallombrosan house for women founded by Umiltà
  • Artistic Type (Category): Digital images; Paintings
  • Artistic Type (Material/Technique): Polyptych; Wood panel
  • Donor: Lay woman? [Cordelia Warr in her article cited above suggests the kneeling donor figure in the polyptych is a lay woman based on her clothing, pp. 296-297.]
  • Height/Width/Length(cm): 46.2 cm/55.4 cm/
  • Inscription:
  • Related Resources: Cordelia Warr, “Viewing and commissioning Pietro Lorenzetti’s Saint Humility Polyptych,” Journal of Medieval History 26, 3 (2000), Janet G. Smith, "Santa Umilta of Faenza: Her Florentine Convent and Its Art", Visions of Holiness: Art and Devotion in Renaissance Italy, [Athens, GA], Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia, 2001