santi giovanni battista e giacomo maggiore

Antonio Orsini was a painter active in the Veneto or Marches in the fifteenth century whose Saints John the Baptist and James the Greater panel likely served as the wing of a polyptych altarpiece. The pairing of the Precursor with the apostle James — patron of the most important Christian pilgrimage route in western Europe — was a natural combination for a church with devotional connections to pilgrimage. Orsini's work belongs to the provincial polyptych tradition that served Venetian terraferma churches with competent if not distinguished altarpieces throughout the fifteenth century.

The two saints are depicted in the standing altarpiece wing format with their attributes: John with the lamb and reed cross, James with pilgrim's staff and scallop shell. Tempera over panel with gold ground. Orsini's figure handling is solid in the Venetian Gothic manner, with careful physiognomic differentiation between the gaunt, intense Baptist and the more robust apostle figure.