St. Peter miraculously healing St. Agatha’s wounds in prison, in a large initial from an illuminated choirbook, on vellum [northern Italy (Bologna, or perhaps Padua), early fourteenth century]

a cutting, 128mm. by 102mm., with a large initial ‘N’ (perhaps opening “Nunc scio vere quia misit …”, the introit for the feast of St. Peter, 29 June), formed of light green acanthus leaves on a burnished gold ground, enclosing St. Peter standing before a stone tower gesturing towards St. Agatha who appears in the window at its apex, back with remains of two lines of text with music on 4-line red stave, rastrum 38mm., some scratches, small scuffs and chips to gold, else in good condition

This is a very rare image of St. Agatha, who is normally depicted in the gruesome act of her martyrdom. Having dedicated her virginity to God, fifteen-year-old Agatha rejected the amorous advances of the pagan Roman prefect Quintianus, and was incarcerated and mutilated. This composition shows her in prison, as St. Peter appears to her in a vision and cures her wounds. It appears to have been an image localised to thirteenth- and fourteenth-century north-eastern Italian art: for other examples see Palladino, Treasures of a Lost Art, 2003, no.5a, pp.15-16, (leaf from an antiphoner ascribed to Neri da Rimini, made c.1310-15) and fig. 2 (Philadelphia, Free Library, M32:8, painted in Bologna c.1290-1300).