Three Episodes from the Life of St Benedict

This long, low panel was never meant to stand on its own. It is a predella, the strip of small scenes that ran along the base of a large altarpiece, down at eye level where a worshipper kneeling before the altar could read them up close. Neroccio de' Landi, a Sienese painter and sculptor who for years shared a workshop with the architect Francesco di Giorgio, packs three moments from the life of Saint Benedict into it. In one, a monk lowers bread on a rope to the young hermit hidden in his cave. In another, Benedict's prayer mends a sieve his nurse had broken. In the third, a king sends a servant disguised in royal robes to test the saint, who sees through the trick at once.