Scenes from a Legend; Coats of Arms

The Master of Charles of Durazzo is named for connections to Charles III of Naples (the Duke of Durazzo), who seized the Neapolitan throne in 1382. This panel of Scenes from a Legend with Coats of Arms belongs to a civic or dynastic commission in which sacred narrative and heraldic display were combined — a format characteristic of late fourteenth-century Italian court painting where religious imagery served political memory. The coats of arms function as a documentary record of the patron's lineage and allegiances within what appears to be a painted chronicle format.

The panel combines narrative registers with heraldic devices in a format derived from manuscript illumination adapted for panel support. The coats of arms are rendered with heraldic precision — flat, declarative colour within defined outlines. The narrative scenes above show a Neapolitan late Gothic figure style with Byzantine vestiges in the gold ground and hieratic spacing.