Christ on the cross with saints Nicholas and Francis

In 1417 a group of Florentine laymen founded a company at San Niccolo to teach Christian doctrine to boys, one of the first four such schools in the city. Around 1430 they commissioned this from a young Dominican friar at Fiesole, two decades before the frescoes at San Marco that made his name. What he gave them is not a rectangular altarpiece. The panels are sawn to the outline of the figures, so the crucified Christ and the two saints kneeling at his feet stood free on the altar, closer to a carved group than to a painting. Nicholas of Bari was the company's own patron. The work is now kept in the sacristy of the oratory, which still stands between the cathedral and Santa Croce.