Pope Saint Sylvester baptises Constantine in the Lateran

The work is one of a group of four panels.

See also Inv. A 13 - A 14 - A 16

The four panels with a gold background, the origin of which is still unknown, are the work of  Battista da Vicenza, the first important artist on the painting scene in Vicenza, active between 1404 and 1438.

His painting, still linked to the so-called “International Gothic” – a style that was widespread in Europe, “characterised by narrative taste, rich decoration, elegance shown in the sinuous lines of the bodies, splendid garments” (Villa) – achieves particularly high results here. The precision with which the artist defines the architecture and landscape and the details of the fabrics and clothing of the many figures that crowd the small painted surface gives these paintings the effect of miniatures. Their preciousness is accentuated by the use of bright shining colours along with numerous layers of gold leaf.

The panels illustrate four episodes from the life of Saint Sylvester (identified in each scene by the papal tiara and robes and by an inscription showing his name next to the figure), narrated by Eusebius of Caesarea. In the first the saint, who was elected Pope in 1314, is seated next to the Emperor Constantine and his mother Helena, who followed the Jewish religion. In a disputation with some learned rabbis from Rome before a curious crowd, he tames a wild bull, thus converting the Empress to Christianity. The second scene, set in a spacious architectural structure that symbolises the Lateran, shows the Pope baptising the Emperor Constantine, saving him from leprosy, in the presence of the civil and religious authorities of the time. The third episode shows the saint taming the dragon that threatened Rome from the cave of the Tarpeian Rock, near the Capitol. The last panel shows the solemn funeral of Saint Sylvester, who is lying under a sumptuous canopy, while his soul is accompanied to Heaven by two angels in the presence of a grieving crowd.