St. Agnes

Milan, 2nd half of the 14th century
Marble
Museum of the Cathedral of Milan

St. Agnes holds her two attributes, a palm branch signifying martyrdom and a small lamb. As usual, she is bareheaded. Not usual is her décolletage, the shoulders being bare above a decorative band at the top of an armor-like corset. In almost all other portraits the saint's robe will have just a modest scoop at the neck, although there is one example in Burgos in which she has a corset with an elaborate top band and bare shoulders.

The top band on the Milan corset features one roundel on the left with a coat of arms and another on the right with some sort of design. Between the two is her name, santa A[g]nes, the A being set in a shield. The shield is consonant with the coat of arms and the armor-like appearance of the corset.

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Photographed at the museum by Richard Stracke, shared under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.