Antonio and Piero del Pollaiolo, St. Vincent, St. James, and St. Eustace
1466-67
Oil on wood
Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy
Provenance: Church of San Miniato al Monte, Florence
As usual, St. James the Greater is pictured as a pilgrim. His staff is of the most serviceable type, with a spiked bottom and a hook for hanging a gourd. His velvet cloak matches the similarly sumptuous pilgrim's hat at his feet with a scallop shell on the band, an emblem of pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. He is the namesake of James of Portugal, a cardinal who is buried in the funerary chapel for which this work was painted.
On the left is St. Vincent, wearing the sleeved "dalmatic" that references his position as a deacon. He is the patron saint of Lisbon, which perhaps explains his portrait's being in James of Portugal's chapel. He holds a small palm branch in his right hand, but St. Lawrence and St. Stephen are also martyred deacons with a wide following, so his identity is firmly established only by the Gallery's label.
Similarly, the man on the right, identified by the label as St. Eustace, has no attributes other than the palm branch in his left hand. His depiction here is consistent with other images that picture him as a young man with either a short, trim beard or none at all.
View this image in full resolution.
Read more about St. James the Greater, St. Eustace, and St. Vincent.
Photographed at the Uffizi by Richard Stracke, shared under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.