Saint Philip

Philip was one of the first disciples, and later tradition sent him to preach in Greece, Syria and Phrygia, in present-day Turkey. The legend told in the Middle Ages ends at Hierapolis, where he was crucified. Costa shows him standing in a landscape, absorbed in a book, with a slender cross leaning on his shoulder and a second, smaller cross fixed to it, the sign of how he died. The panel stood on the Virgin's other side, opposite Saint Peter, in the lower tier of the altarpiece, with Saint John the Evangelist and Saint John the Baptist above. At its inner edge you can still see the steps of her throne. Like the rest of the set, it was painted on wood and moved onto canvas in the 19th century, when it was probably cut down a little as well.