The Madonna and Child in glory with Saint Anthony Abbot, Catherine, Margaret and Julian with four angels

This panel is a refined work by Tommaso del Mazza, formerly known as the Master of Saint Verdiana—an artist active in Florence during the last decades of the fourteenth century. His oeuvre was initially reconstructed by Miklós Boskovits, who grouped the pictures under the name of the anonymous master, in reference to a panel of the Madonna and Child with Six Saints, which included a rare representation of Saint Verdiana, in the High Museum of Art in Atlanta. Subsequently the artist was identified by Barbara Deimling as Tommaso del Mazza, who is recorded between 1377 and 1392, and was active in Florence, Prato and Pisa (see B. Deimling, A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting. Section IV: The Fourteenth Century. Volume VIII: Tradition and Innovation in Florentine Trecento Painting: Giovanni Bonsi – Tommaso del Mazza, Florence, 2000, pp. 107–369). Documents were found that showed Tommaso was responsible for the altarpiece for the ospedale founded by Bonifazio Lupi in Florence, a work identified as the triptych in the Musée du Petit Palais in Avignon, which up until that point had been given to the Master of Saint Verdiana.

Dated circa 1385-90, this panel exemplifies the sophisticated devotional art flourishing in Florence toward the close of the trecento. While Tommaso's artistic style drew significantly upon the influential workshops of Agnolo Gaddi, the Master of the Straus Madonna, and Niccolò Gerini, his paintings reveal a distinctive individuality, profoundly influenced by Orcagna’s legacy and enriched by the courtly elegance and intricate decorative techniques characteristic of the period.