LORENZETTI, Ambrogio
(b. ca. 1290, Siena, d. 1348, Siena)

Scenes from the Life of St Nicholas

c. 1332
Tempera on wood, 92 x 49 cm
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

There survive the remains of two works by Ambrogio from the church of San Procolo, Florence. One of these, four scenes on panel of the Life of St Nicholas of Bari (Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence) probably belonged to a work resembling Simone Martini's Blessed Agostino Novello (Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena). It contains remarkable spatial effects: a church interior, two street scenes and a seascape, undoubtedly reflecting the artist's previous experience of composing for fresco. The other work from San Procolo, three panels of the Virgin and Child, St Nicholas and St Proculus (Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence), were part of the altarpiece that once bore Ambrogio's name and a date of 1332, as recorded in early secondary sources. These panels raise the complex problem of workshop participation.

The four panels from San Procolo were recorded there by Vasari. Presumably they were painted as side wings of a triptych which had a figure of St Nicholas in the central panel (disappeared) during the second visit of Ambrogio to Florence between 1327 and 1332, or later. Another possibility is that the panels made up a tabernacle door.

The scenes at the right panel represent Resurrection of the Dead Child (top) and Nicholas, as Bishop of Myra Saves the Town from Famine.