Coronation of the Virgin with Four Music-Making Angels

The saint in the red cap, holding a red book beside Dominic in his black and white habit, is Ivo of Kermartin, a Breton priest and church judge who took on the cases of the poor without payment. He was made a saint in 1347, and lawyers adopted him as their patron. Giovanni dal Ponte painted this altarpiece around 1425 to 1430, probably for the chapel of the Albergotti in the Pieve di Santa Maria in Arezzo, a leading local family with many judges and jurists among its members. The chapel was pulled down in 1570. The panels turn up in 1777 among the property of the Monte di Pietà, a charitable pawn bank, and by 1786 they belonged to the Uffizi. At the Virgin's feet four angels make music, and along the base runs the Regina Caeli, the Eastertide chant to Mary.