Saint John the Baptist retiring to the Desert

Giovanni di Paolo tells this story in two steps. First the young John steps out through a city gate, his few belongings tied in a bundle on a stick. Then he appears again higher up, climbing a steep path into sharp grey crags. Below him lies what he is leaving behind, a valley of neat fields laid out like a patchwork, with a farmhouse among them. The panel, dated 1454, sat in the predella, the strip of small scenes along the base of an altarpiece, and came from the church of Sant'Agostino in Cortona. Three other scenes from John's life, from the same strip, are also in the National Gallery. On either side, painted roses open at different stages, a kind of border he may have picked up from an altarpiece Gentile da Fabriano made for Florence.