Saint Ambrose Enthroned Flagellating Two Heretics

The whip in Ambrose's hand was a recent addition. On 21 February 1339 Milanese troops beat a mercenary company at Parabiago, west of the city, and the chronicler Galvano Fiamma reported that Ambrose, patron of Milan and dead since 397, had appeared above the fighting dressed in white with a scourge. Milanese images started handing him one from then on, and here he sits enthroned and brings it down on two heretics at his feet.

The chapel this wall came from belonged to the Porro, a family in the service of the Visconti who ruled Milan, so their patron saint turns up with an attribute the city had given him roughly 25 years earlier.

About twenty years after the battle the same scourge appeared on Milanese coins, and it stayed on the coinage for close to four centuries.