St Lawrence before the Emperor Decius

Around 1465 the parish church of St. Lorenzen, in the Pustertal valley of South Tyrol, received a new high altar, the first altarpiece by Michael Pacher that documents record. Its painted panels told the legend of the church's patron, Saint Lawrence, a deacon of Rome who looked after the Christian community's money. According to the medieval Golden Legend, the emperor Decius demanded those treasures. Lawrence asked for three days, gathered the poor, the lame and the blind, and presented them as the treasure. Here he stands in a red deacon's vestment, his hand pointing towards an old man with a stick and the crowd behind him. Decius sits on a marble throne in a turban topped with a crown. Pacher dressed this Roman court in the fashions of his own day, down to the long pointed shoe resting on the step.