Berenson's listing of the present panel as an early work by Gentile was initially regarded with reservation by Keith Christiansen, loc. cit., 1982, on the basis of available photographs. Subsequently, however, he identified the subject as Saint Paul the Hermit and associated the panel with an altarpiece including a depiction of the saint recorded in the church of Santa Sofia, Venice, and presumably executed during Gentile's early years in the city between 1408 and 1413 when he was resident in that parish (Christiansen, loc. cit., 1987). The altarpiece is first mentioned in 1581 by Sansovino (loc. cit.): 'Vi dipinse la palla di San Paolo primo heremita, e di Santo Antonio, Gentile da Fabriano, che fu maestro nella pittura de i Bellini' and is presumably that recorded in 1648 by Ridolfi (loc. cit.,) as in the nearby church of San Felice: 'Fece in oltre vna tauola in San Felice de' Santi Paolo, & Antonio Eremiti' (see Christiansen, op. cit., 1982, pp. 139-40). Judging from a transparency, Mr Christiansen has recently confirmed his belief that the present panel is from the Santa Sofia Altarpiece and has furthermore suggested that the small panels of Saints Peter and Paul at I Tatti (ibid., p. 91, no. VI, pl. 17) originally formed parts of the same ensemble