Stories of Saint Barbara

Saint Barbara's legend belongs to the Roman Empire of the early Christians, but Giolfino set it in his own city. In the middle of this long, narrow panel you can recognise Piazza dei Signori in Verona. On the left stands the Loggia del Consiglio, the arcaded building the city council had raised between 1476 and 1493. Beside it are the crenellated palaces of the old Scaliger lords, by then the seat of Venice's governors, and beyond an arch rises the tomb of Mastino II della Scala.

The story runs from left to right. Barbara's pagan father shuts her in a tower for becoming a Christian. She escapes by a miracle, is caught, and a Roman prefect sentences her to torture, which she survives unharmed. She is paraded naked through the streets, and an angel comes down to cover her. Finally the emperor condemns her to be beheaded, her own father carries out the sentence, and in the last scene he is burned up by a bolt of lightning.

The museum calls the panel a predella, the strip of small scenes beneath an altarpiece, and dates it to around 1530. Other scholars group it with the small pictures Giolfino painted for the fronts of chests and bedsteads.