薔薇園の聖母

Around 1420 courtly painting across Europe shared one refined style, all gold and delicate detail, and this is one of its loveliest survivors. The Madonna sits not on a throne but in a walled rose garden, an old symbol of her purity. Around her, small angels read, gather rose petals, and draw water from a Gothic fountain, while two peacocks step through the flowers. Medieval writers believed a peacock's flesh never rotted, so the birds stand quietly for the promise of eternal life. The picture has long been given to Stefano da Verona, though some scholars hand it instead to his older contemporary Michelino da Besozzo. Saint Catherine kneels at the lower edge, her spiked wheel resting in the grass beside her.