The Miraculous Madonna of Pistoia in a Devotional Replica of 1490–1500 Attributed to Niccolò di Mariano

Abstract

In this article, it is suggested that a small panel of the Madonna of Humility in the collection of the Rijksmuseum, executed with fifteenth-century woodworking and painting techniques and materials, is a devotional copy of the fresco of the Virgin of Humility in Pistoia that became miraculously active in 1490. Historical, stylistic, and archival evidence suggests the panel is possibly a work by Niccolò di Mariano (act. 1478; d. 1500), perhaps made as a devotional replica not long after the miraculous event.