Sixty years ago today the first eye bank opened (oddly enough at New York’s Ear, Nose and Throat Hospital) so this week’s painting is a depiction of St Lucy, patron saint of those suffering diseases of the eye. The work was painted in tempera on panel by the Ferrarese artist Francesco del Cossa some time between 1470 and 1473, and originally formed part of an altarpiece commissioned by one Floriano Griffoni for his family chapel in the church of San Petronio in Bologna. That altarpiece is now in many pieces. Its central panel, on the subject of St Vincent Ferrer, is in the National Gallery in London, while its two side panels, of St Peter and St John the Baptist, are to be found in the Brera Gallery in Milan. The picture reproduced here can be seen in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, together with its companion, a portrait of St Florian, painted on a piece of wood of identical shape and size. Both would originally have been mounted above the side panels which formed the wings of the folding altarpiece, and given that one of them depicts the name saint of Floriano Griffoni, it is probable that these paintings of saints were depictions of him and his wife. History does not relate if Mrs Griffoni was called Lucy, but in all likelihood she was, and this is a portrait of her. With her faintly haughty manner, in her elegant head-dress and costume, with its fine hem of gold brocade, she certainly looks more like a Renaissance aristocrat than an early Christian martyr.
According to legend St Lucy was born in Syracuse, Sicily, in the third century AD. A daughter of noble and rich parents, she was brought up as a Christian. She made a secret...
