Polyptych of San Martino

The Polyptych of San Martino, created by Butinone in 1485 for the Collegiate Church of San Martino in Treviglio, represents one of his most ambitious surviving altarpiece commissions. Treviglio, a Lombard town between Milan and Bergamo, was in the orbit of both cities' artistic production, and the polyptych — a multi-panel altarpiece with a central devotional image flanked by subsidiary saints — was the dominant format for large-scale devotional painting in the region. Butinone collaborated on this commission with Bernardo Zenale, making the attribution of individual panels a matter of ongoing scholarly discussion.

The polyptych format required Butinone to maintain visual and thematic coherence across multiple separate panels while distinguishing each saint's individual character. The gold ground connects the work to the late Gothic tradition even as the figures show the influence of Early Renaissance humanism in their individualized features and spatial presence.