Wood, 173X146 cm + frame 13 cm, Inv. n. 122


The work was commissioned by the widow of Vincenzo Bazzolini with a deed dated 1504, made known by Grigioni, to decorate the altar of the family chapel in the church of St. Francis in Faenza. It remained on display there until the Napoleonic suppression. The work underwent a complex attribution process before Corbara recognised the altar piece commissioned to D'Antonio by Bazzolini's widow in the altar piece of the Pinacoteca. Intuition confirmed during the 1949 restoration of the painting, which revealed the perfect conformity of the subject with the description of the client, after having provided the true identity of the two saints to the sides, which seemed to be Bonaventure and Bernardino of Siena following a repainting that occurred perhaps during the seventeenth century. The style of this work is typical of that later period of the artist where, even if the figures of the saints are still reminiscent of Verrocchio, the central part of the Madonna on the throne with the Infant is decidedly closer to that of contemporary Romagna artists. The commission of this painting also called for a crowning depicting the Annunciation, which has unfortunately been lost.