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Saint Ursula with the Virgins

Zanobi Poggini 1549

The painting has an archaising neo-15th-century layout, especially in the figure of Saint Ursula who welcomes the young virgins under her ample cloak. The iconic gaze of the female faces perfectly interprets the “Savonarolian” ideology, in referring to the art of Fra' Bartolomeo.

Technical information

Author: Zanobi Poggini
Title: Saint Ursula with the Virgins
Date: 1549
Material and technique: Oil on panel
Size: 182x127,5 cm
Location: Palazzo Pretorio Museum
Second Floor

The panel has been juxtaposed with one of the best works left to Prato by Zanobi Poggini, namely the Effusio sanguinis with Saints Stephen and Lawrence executed in 1549 for the Chapel of Sacramento in Duomo. However, an earlier date cannot be discounted for the Saint Ursula, i.e. at the time when Poggini frequented the workshop of Giovanni Antonio Sogliani - a Florentine painter who was a pupil of Lorenzo di Credi - to whom one can clearly associate the pyramidal and symmetrical composition, the setting in a bare interior and many of the female physiognomies.