Alba Polyptych

The year 1506 is written on the scroll that Saint Paul holds in one of these panels. The altarpiece was made for the church of San Francesco in Alba, Macrino's home town, and the friars' own saints stand beside older ones. Bonaventure, Louis of Toulouse, Anthony of Padua and Rose of Viterbo all belonged to the Franciscan family, and in the central panel Francis himself receives the stigmata, the wounds of Christ. That scene also holds a portrait of the man who paid for the work, named in the museum's record as Enrico Balistero.

The museum points out what is missing. The central panel of the upper tier, which would have shown the Virgin enthroned with the Child, is lost. It also notes that some panels keep a gold background while others open onto landscape, a mix that shows painting here moving gradually from late Gothic habits toward newer solutions. The panels came to Turin in 1841, a gift from Costanzo Michele Fea, bishop of Alba.