Francesco Pesellino (1422–1457) and Fra Filippo Lippi (1406–1469) and workshop, The Pistoia Santa Trinità Altarpiece, c.1455–60, egg tempera, tempera grassa and oil on wood, 185.5 × 91 cm, The National Gallery, London
The Pistoia Santa Trinità Altarpiece was commissioned in 1455 for the high altar of the Company of the Priests of the Trinity’s church in Pistoia’s Piazza Cino (now Gavinana). The commission was first entrusted to Francesco Pesellino, who began the work in Florence but died suddenly in 1457, before completing it. Responsibility for finishing the altarpiece then passed to Fra Filippo Lippi and his Prato workshop, who between 1458 and 1460 completed the central panel and the predella.
Scholars have long observed that while much of the execution reflects the broader idiom of Lippi’s workshop, the figure of St Mamas at the left edge of the composition appears stylistically distinct. The saint is marked by a more subtle modelling of form, a quieter emotional charge, and a refinement in physiognomy and drapery that differ from the more robust, rhythmical contours of Lippi’s shop practice. The tenderness of the youthful martyr’s face, his carefully balanced stance, and the sensitive handling of light and shadow align more closely with Pesellino’s surviving works and his known preference for delicate, almost lyrical effects. This stylistic divergence has been taken as direct evidence of Pesellino’s hand in this section, standing as a poignant trace of his authorship within a project otherwise carried forward by another master.
When the overseeing confraternity was suppressed in 1793, the altarpiece was dismantled and sold in parts. Its central Trinity survives in London, while other panels and predella scenes are dispersed across collections.
The composition itself presents a carefully structured vision of the Trinity: the dove of the Holy Spirit hovers above Christ crucified, while God the Father rises behind, physically supporting the crossbeam and resting his feet on a cloud — a striking and theologically innovative visualisation of divine unity. To Christ’s left stand St Mamas and St James the Greater, identifiable by his pilgrim’s staff; to the right, St Zeno of Verona and St Jerome in cardinal’s robes.
The predella depicted episodes from the lives of these saints, including St Mamas confronting lions, the beheading of St James, St Zeno’s exorcism of Emperor Gallienus’s daughter, and St Jerome extracting a thorn from a lion’s paw. These narrative scenes, vigorous in characterisation and vivid in gesture, reflect the output of Lippi’s workshop, though they preserve traces of Pesellino’s initial design.
One of the most admired components of the original ensemble was the altar frontal, which depicted the Virgin of Mercy (Madonna della Misericordia). Contemporary sources considered this the finest part of the commission, and it is attributed entirely to Fra Filippo Lippi. Only black-and-white photographs survive; the panel itself, along with over 450 other paintings, was destroyed in Berlin in 1945 by Soviet troops. The loss remains one of the most grievous wartime destructions of Renaissance painting.
