Incoronazione della Vergine con santi (Polittico di Valle Romita)

This was painted around 1410 for a Franciscan hermitage in the hills of Valle Romita, near Gentile da Fabriano's home town in the Marche. It was probably paid for by Chiavello Chiavelli, the local lord, who a few years earlier had restored the convent to hold his own tomb. So a man arranging where he would be buried commissioned this shimmering gold vision of the Virgin being crowned in heaven. Gentile imagined that heaven as a burst of golden light above the stars, with a small orchestra of angels playing on it. This is the International Gothic style at its most luxurious, more like goldsmith's work than what we usually think of as painting. The polyptych was taken apart, perhaps as early as the 18th century, and its panels reached the Brera in Milan in two stages, five larger ones in 1811 after the hermitage was closed, and four smaller ones bought from a private collection in 1901.