Domenico Ghirlandaio, 'A Legend of Saints Justus and Clement of Volterra', probably 1479

This scene shows Saints Clement and Justus coming to the aid of the citizens of Volterra – the town was under siege by the Vandals, a Germanic tribe. There was little to eat and the people were starving until, in answer to the saints‘ prayers, the granaries were miraculously filled and it was finally possible to bake some bread.

The saints appear at the gates of the fortified city, offering the bread to their enemies following the instruction of the Book of Romans, which teaches: ’if thine enemy hunger, feed him‘ (Romans 12: 20). This is a slight deviation from the story, in which the saints throw the bread over the city walls, but Domenico Ghirlandaio’s version is simpler to depict and has the benefit of stressing the courage and kindness of the saints’ action. Some of the soldiers here rip off round rolls from a larger loaf. Well-fed, they end the siege and leave the city with their weapons.

This panel was part of a predella – the lowest part of an altarpiece, usually painted with narrative scenes from the lives of the saints depicted on the main panel. The altarpiece was probably painted in 1479 for San Giusto alle Mura, a church just outside of Florence that was dedicated to Saint Justus. The altarpiece’s main panel (Uffizi, Florence) shows the Virgin and Child enthroned surrounded by Saints Michael, Justus, Raphael and Zenobius. Four other predella panels survive (Fall of the Rebel Angels in the Detroit Institute of Arts; The Marriage of the Virgin, Tobias and the Archangel Raphael and Burial of Saint Zenobius, all in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York). This panel would have been below the image of Saint Justus.