The Tree of Life

This panel comes from the Florentine convent of the Poor Clares at Monticelli, painted around 1310 to 1315 for nuns who often could not read the Latin texts they recited every day. Pacino di Buonaguida gave them a tree to meditate on instead. The crucified Christ hangs on its trunk, and 12 branches spread from the cross, each carrying a line of text and ending in a red fruit that once held a verse in gold. Small roundels with scenes from his life hang along them, to be followed from the bottom up. At the foot, scenes from Genesis flank the hill of Golgotha, and inside it Saint Bonaventure sits in a cave, holding open a book, probably his own Tree of Life, the text the whole design follows. Heaven fills the top. In one of the last roundels, among apostles struck by rays of light, stands a Franciscan nun without a halo. She may be Agnes, Saint Clare's sister, who for a time led this convent.