Andrea Vanni

In the church of San Domenico in Siena there is a slight, faded figure of a woman holding a lily while a kneeling follower kisses her hand. It is Saint Catherine of Siena, and it is very likely the only likeness of her made while she was still alive. The painter was Andrea Vanni, and he knew her personally. He was one of her disciples, and several of the letters in her collected correspondence are addressed to him.

Vanni painted in the tradition of Simone Martini, the great Sienese master of the previous generation, working in gold grounds and elegant, curving line. Yet painting was only half his life. He was also a politician, a leading member of the faction that governed Siena through much of the 1370s and 1380s, and he travelled on diplomatic missions for the city.

Because Catherine became a saint soon after her death in 1380, his image of her took on a weight beyond art. One friar wrote that he was cured of a stammer after praying beneath it, and for centuries it was kept as her true face.