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Saint Catherine Retable by Martinus de Vilanova

This document describes a retable painting of Saint Catherine from 1387 located at the God Trodden Mount Sinai Holy Monastery of Saint Catherine. The painting was completed in Damascus by Martinus de Vilanova and commissioned by Bernardo Maresa, the Consul of Catalans in Damascus. It depicts Saint Catherine standing with a palm branch and wheel of martyrdom. The painting includes coats of arms representing the donor, Kingdom of Aragon, and Kingdom of Catalonia. The retable exemplifies Catalan artistic style of the period and emphasizes the prominence of the Monastery of Sinai as a pilgrimage site for Christians in the 13th century.

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Kalomirakis Dimitris
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102 views4 pages

Saint Catherine Retable by Martinus de Vilanova

This document describes a retable painting of Saint Catherine from 1387 located at the God Trodden Mount Sinai Holy Monastery of Saint Catherine. The painting was completed in Damascus by Martinus de Vilanova and commissioned by Bernardo Maresa, the Consul of Catalans in Damascus. It depicts Saint Catherine standing with a palm branch and wheel of martyrdom. The painting includes coats of arms representing the donor, Kingdom of Aragon, and Kingdom of Catalonia. The retable exemplifies Catalan artistic style of the period and emphasizes the prominence of the Monastery of Sinai as a pilgrimage site for Christians in the 13th century.

Uploaded by

Kalomirakis Dimitris
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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http://www.egeriaproject.net/main.aspx http://www.egeriaproject.net/mov_display.aspx?

id=188
Egeria, Monuments of faith in the Medieval Mediterranean, Greek Ministry of Culture, Sinai Icons, Greek Ministry of Culture,
Athens, 2008. Religious objects, God Trodden Mount Sinai Holy Monastery of Saint Catherine, Dependency at Lebanon

(Page 271) Monastery of Sinai as a pilgrim site for all Christians in the
13th century. [D.K.]
66. RETABLE WITH SAINT
CATHERINE, WORK OF
MARTINUS DE VILANOVA

Dating: 1387
Dimensions: Width 127.3, height 56.5 cm.
Place of keeping: God Trodden Mount Sinai Holy Monastery,
Saint Catherine’s

Tempera and gold leaf on panel with a frame later added.


Damascus 1387. Old Catalan inscription on the lower border
of the panel says: ≪Aquest(a) retaula, si fer lo honrat, e(n)
Be(r)nat M(ar)esa, ciutada de Barch(ino)na. Consol de
Catalans en Domas en l’an MCCCLXXXVII≫. On the back
of the panel the painter’s signature: ≪MARTIN(US) D(E)
VILANOVA PINXIT≫.
The saint is depicted full-scale, standing in contrapposto. Her
whole body is shown on a golden background, while she
stands on the ground and the horizon is very low. She wears a
golden crown decorated with precious stones and a red long
gown that is covered with a long azure cloak, decorated with
subjects originating from the French gothic style of that
period. On her right hand she holds a palm branch and
supports her left hand on the wheel of her martyrdom.
Three coats of arms are included in the composition, from
which the one left down, as the spectator sees them, belongs
to the donor Bernardo Maresa, Consul of the Catalans in
Damascus who took this work from Barcelona. The upper
right coat of arms represents the Balearic Islands which have
been subjected to Aragon since 1336 by the king Peter IV
(1336-1387) who in 1344 also took the title of the king of
Majorca. The upper left coat of arms belongs to the king of
Catalonia in the year when on January 5th Peter IV died and
was succeeded by his
(Page 272) 66

son John I (1387-1396), by Eleanor of Sicily. Artistically, Bibliography


this work is a characteristic example of the Catalan art of this
D.Mouriki, Icons from the 12th to the 15th Century, in Sinai.
period. The dedication of the icon of Saint Catherine by Treasures of the Monastery, K.Manaphes (ed.) Ekdotike
Athinon, Athens 1990, 121, 200, fig.73.
Bernardo Maresa emphasises the radiance of the Holy

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