Polyptych of St. Helen

In 1418 a Venetian nobleman built a chapel in the church of Sant'Elena, out on the eastern edge of the city, to hold the relics of Saint Helena. She was the mother of the emperor Constantine, and tradition credited her with finding the True Cross in Jerusalem. For that chapel's altar the Bolognese painter Michele di Matteo made this polyptych, a wall of gold panels in the older style. At the centre the Virgin adores the Christ Child among angels, with four female saints beside her, Helena among them. The Crucifixion crowns the upper tier, ringed by the four Evangelists. Along the base, small scenes act out the legend itself, Helena's men digging on Golgotha and testing the crosses they uncover until one restores a dead body to life. It was that story, the finding of the cross, that had brought her relics to Venice in the first place.