(Sansepolcro 1536–1602 Florence)
Saint Zanobi enthroned and two cherubs,
oil on panel, 130 x 99 cm, framed

We are grateful to Professor Elizabeth Pilliod for suggesting the attribution on the basis of a digital photograph.

Saint Zanobi is distinguished by a brown-grey beard, bishop’s crozier and mitre, and rose mantle closed with a ruby morse over a white rochet. The details and colours of his garments in the present panel are almost identical to those in both the main panel (Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence) and predella (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) of the San Giusto Altarpiece, produced by Domenico and Davide Ghirlandaio in the late 15th century. Another example of the white and rose garments and simple white mitre with a single large jewel in each half that matches the present painting is found in an anonymous small picture of Zanobi preserved in the Capitolo Metropolitano Fiorentino (1). The fourth century Florentine saint was widely commemorated in Florence, in the Florentine Cathedral, the church of San Pier Maggiore, and in two confraternities (2).

Also Florentine in origin is the pietra serena structure on which Zanobi sits and the step in the same grey stone at the bottom of the painting. The saint blesses the viewer, while at his feet a book placed to extend beyond the bottom edge of the setting invites the viewer to reach out and touch it. Two putti support a swag of laurel leaves and fruits that appear architecture and some passages of the saint’s robes), as well as the morphology of the hands and faces, suggests that the painting was painted by an artist trained by or familiar with the methods of Bronzino. In fact the present composition was traditionally given to Bronzino and the outlines of the putti are Bronzinesque, as are the drawing of the hands of the saint, with an emphasis on the outlines and joints in the fingers that is solidly modelled in a manner derived from Bronzino. The grey (pietra serena) architecture and the humble shoes of the saint stem from the concreteness of Bronzino’s touch, but the face of the saint is softer, and many of the details such as glints of light, pearls, metallic threads, speak more of an independent presence than in Bronzino. The gentle glow that emanates from Zanobi’s face, the pearly-grey tonality that underlies the colors of the painting suggest the artist Santi di Tito, who was trained by Bronzino. The wispy twirls of hair and grey skin undertone in the saint are similar to those in the mature male figures in Santi’s Supper at Emmaus in Santa Croce (1574), and the young child at the lower right in that altarpiece recalls the putto to the right of Saint Zanobi. The treatment of architecture (note the floor and step) and the drawing of the raised hand of the man on the right in the Resurrection of the Daughter of Jairus (Vienna, Kunsthistorishes Museum) compare closely with the Saint Zanobi picture.
The direct rapport with the viewer and the call to engagement with Saint Zanobi in the present painting are profound statements of the Counter-Reformation style in Florence. The solid frontality of the image, with its symmetrical balance of composition and sober tone are typical of the 1570s and were hallmarks of Santi di Tito’s style. The specific viewpoint of the painting and the step that projects at its bottom suggest a work intended to be seen just above a wainscoting, perhaps in the chapter rooms of one of the confraternities devoted to Zanobi. There was a revival of interest in local Florentine saints and cults in the second half of the 16th century, and a concomitant boom in commissions of chapels and paintings of these saints. Many of the ancient images of the saint were replaced with ones by the best contemporary painters in Florence, which may possibly be the origin of this painting.

We are grateful to Professor Elizabeth Pilliod for her assistance in the cataloguing of this lot.

(1) Reproduced in color on the cover of: Alessandro Ciandella, San Zanobi, vita, reliquie, culto iconografia, Florence, 2005. See also the exhibition, Santi e Beati della Toscana. Viaggio tra le piccole immagini della devozione popolare, Piombino, 2001, fig. 90.
(2) The church of Santa Reparata (the predecessor of the cathedral) contained an altar to Zanobi in its crypt; in the new Brunelleschian cathedral a chapel was dedicated to Zanobi and richly embellished. Zanobi was believed to have lived for a time in the destroyed church of San Pier Maggiore. The Compagnia di San Zanobi, a prominent lay confraternity was attached to the Cathedral; while the Compagnia della Purificazione e di San Zanobi, a youth confraternity, was build adjacent to San Marco.