Saint Bernardino

San Bernardino, an important fifteenth-century Franciscan preacher, is portrayed wearing the habit of his order while holding a tablet inscribed with the sacred mongram YHS, surrounded by the inscription IN NOMINE YHV/ OMNE. GENV. / FLETATUR./ CELESTIUM/ TERESTI ET INFERNORV. The reverse is gessoed and painted off-white, suggesting that the panel was designed for private devotional use and did not form part of the pillasters or predella of an altarpiece.
The panel was likely painted by a member of Sano di Pietro's workshop. Sano was a popular and highly prolific Sienese painter and illuminator. The close stylistic affinities between works attributed to Sano and the enigmatic Sienese artist known as the Osservanza Master (so-named after the above-mentioned triptych in the Osservanza in Siena) may indicate that they represent a single artistic identity. It is also possible that the paintings attributed to the Osservanza Master are the product of a collaborative workshop to which these artists belonged.