Saint Christophe

Pietro di Giovanni Lianori was a minor Bolognese painter active in the mid-fifteenth century working in the tradition of Michele di Matteo and the late International Gothic school of Bologna. His Saint Christopher panel depicts the giant who ferried Christ across a river — only realising the child's divine weight when the crossing nearly overwhelmed him. Christopher was among the most popular protective saints of the later Middle Ages, invoked against sudden death and plague, and his image was placed prominently in church interiors so that the faithful could see him on entering — the act of seeing Christopher was believed to protect against death that day.

Lianori renders Christopher as the traditional giant figure wading through water with the Christ child on his shoulder and his staff supporting them both. The panel follows the standard devotional image format with gold ground and careful attribute rendering. The Bolognese late Gothic style is visible in the somewhat stiff figural treatment and the decorative attention to the saint's costume and the Christ child's robes.