Madonna and Child with Saints Paul and Francis

Antoniazzo Romano put both his name and the year on this altarpiece, and for a long time only the name could be read. The signature runs along the ground at the foot of the throne, Anthonatius Romanus pinxit, Antoniazzo the Roman painted this. The date, 1487 in Roman numerals, sits in a small plaque on the right-hand pilaster of the throne, lost among the carved ornament, and it was uncovered only during a restoration in 1978. Since then the panel has been one of the fixed points from which his career is reconstructed.

It was painted for San Paolo at Poggio Nativo, a church of the Observant Franciscans in the hills near Rieti, north-east of Rome, which explains the two saints. Paul, the patron of the church, stands on one side and Francis on the other, while the Child blesses beneath a crown floating above his mother. At the end of the 19th century the art historian Adolfo Venturi found the picture there in a state of serious neglect, and in 1897 the state bought it from the convent.

The museum links the rose-coloured stone throne, with its pilasters carved in antique candelabra patterns, to Antoniazzo's work alongside the sculptor Andrea Bregno. Among the punched haloes it singles out Saint Francis's cross, drawn gold on gold.