Winged Altarpiece, probably of Saint Catherine (the 'Song of Songs Altarpiece')

In the early 16th century, Renaissance forms were reaching Austrian workshops that still built altarpieces the Gothic way. This small one, which the Belvedere attributes to a workshop in Krems and dates around 1520 to 1530, shows both. Classical columns frame the shrine, yet the wings open like a medieval retable, and inside they are carved rather than painted.

The four limewood reliefs keep traces of their original gold and colour. One tells a story from the Golden Legend, the medieval book of saints' lives. Saint Benedict, living as a hermit in a cave at Subiaco, was fed by a monk named Romanus, who lowered bread on a rope with a small bell to announce it, until the devil broke the bell with a stone. The other reliefs show Sebastian, Jerome at his penance, and Stephen being stoned. The crossbow once aimed at Sebastian has broken away, and of the stones raised over Stephen only one survives.