Antoniazzo Romano, Madonna and Child with Saints: Detail, upper register

15th century
Fresco
Church of SS. Vitus and Modestus, Rome, Italy

This part of the fresco strongly resembles another Antoniazzo Madonna studied in Everett. The child touches the mother's left hand, whose middle fingers are pressed together. The long face tilted slightly to the right and the hard-edged eyebrows are also studied in Everett's article. The present fresco also resembles one in San Fedele, Como, both in the details of the central figures and the perspectivally pictured podium.

Left and right are St. Crescentia and St. Modestus, the nurse and tutor of St. Vitus, who is portrayed below. The bottom margin identifies them and adds the phrase balio di s. vito, the first word surely a misspelling of bailo: thus, "Dance of St. Vitus," a late-medieval traditional dance that gave its name to what is now called Sydenham's chorea.

View the entire fresco.
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Photographed at the site by Richard Stracke, shared under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.