BORGHESE DI PIERO BORGHESE

Italian painter. He was active in Pisa between 1420 and 1429, then in Lucca where in 1447 he became a citizen of the city. Formerly his works were ascribed to a Master of Saints Cyrus and Juliet (Santi Quirico e Giulitta). He was identified as Borghese di Piero Borghese in 1965 by Roberto Longhi after reviewing three predellaGLOSSARYAn Italian word for the small strip of paintings which forms the lower edge or socle of a large altarpiece (pala). Such a polyptych consists of a principal, central panel with subsidiary side and/or top panels, and a predella: the predella usually has narrative scenes from the lives of the Saints who are represented in the panels above. Because of the small size of predelle - they are not usually more than 25-30 cm high, though often relatively very wide - they were frequently used for pictorial experiments that the painter did not wish to risk making in the larger panels. The first datable example seems to be that in Simone Martini's S. Louis of Toulouse (1317, Naples). scenes belonging to the triptychGLOSSARYA painting in three sections, usually an altarpiece, consisting of a central panel and two outer panels, or wings. In many medieval triptychs the two outer wings were hinged so that could be closed over the center panel. Early triptychs were often portable. The Story of Saints Julitta and Quiricus (Courtauld GalleryGLOSSARYan upper story, similar to a tribune, running along the side of a building and open on one side to the interior; in a church (basilica) above the side aisles, over the ambulatory (central-plan building) and also over the west end. The gallery was used to keep certain groups of worshippers apart (women, noblemen)., London). The predella scenes show the martyrdomGLOSSARYthe sufferings, torture and death inflicted on a person on account of his faith or convictions. of these two saints.