Retablo de San Bernabé

Botticelli made this altarpiece around 1487 for the church of San Barnaba in Florence, commissioned by the guild of doctors and apothecaries, the same guild that painters belonged to. He set the Virgin and Child on a high throne in a hall of colored marble, ringed by angels and six standing saints, among them John the Baptist and the warrior Michael in his armor. This was Botticelli near the peak of his Florentine career, in the years before the preacher Savonarola's austerity would darken his work. The predella beneath once held small scenes, four of which survive in the same museum. At the far left stands Catherine of Alexandria, holding the wheel on which she was condemned to die.