Madonna of the Girdle with Saints Catherine of Alexandria and Francis of Assisi

At either end of the base, two small women in Franciscan habits kneel in prayer. In 1434 Niccolò di Francesco Baldelli founded an oratory dedicated to the Assumption of Mary beside the church of Santa Margherita in Cortona, and in 1437, only three years later, Andrea di Giusto painted this altarpiece for its altar. The women's names are unknown. They were most likely members of the Baldelli family, honouring the relative who had founded the chapel. Above them the Virgin rises in a mandorla ringed by angels and lets down her girdle to Saint Thomas, kneeling by the empty tomb. The golden band with its tasselled ends resembles the relic of the girdle kept in Prato. The frame is part Gothic polyptych and part square altarpiece of the new kind Florentine painters were moving towards. The oratory itself has since been destroyed.