Free downloadable Renaissance Catholic paintings in the public domain.
Fundamental to Christian belief, the Holy Trinity refers to the three divine persons in God—God the Father, here depicted wearing a papal tiara, God the Son, crucified on the cross, and the Holy Spirit, represented as a dove.
The artist has set Christ's birth in a ruined stable, witnessed by shepherds and angels. The candle Joseph holds symbolizes the supremacy of Christ's divine radiance over earthly light.
The women's upturned, grasping palms beautifully convey their adoration of Christ, tenderly answered by Christ's gesture. Bartolomeo Rigossi used a brilliant yellow to describe the wispy grass and foliage as well as to create the warm light cascading over the rolling hills.
The symbolic family tree of Jesus is depicted here. The tree grows from the body of the sleeping Jesse. He was the ancestor of a family of kings that, according to tradition, included Solomon, David, and Jesus. The tree is filled with the kings of Israel, including King David with his harp.
St. Peter Martyr, also called Peter of Verona, Italian San Pietro Martire or San Pietro da Verona, (born 1205?, Verona [Italy]—died April 6, 1252, near Milan; canonized 1253; feast day April 29), inquisitor, vigorous preacher, and religious founder who, for his militant reformation, was assassinated by a neo-Manichaean...
Saint Cecilia (Latin: Sancta Caecilia), is a Roman martyr venerated in Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican and some Lutheran churches, such as the Church of Sweden. She became the patron of music and musicians, it being written that, as the musicians played at her wedding, Cecilia "sang in her heart to...
Jean Bellegambe worked in Douai, in a part of northern France that was once part of the county of Flanders. These panels are the wings of a triptych, a three-paneled folding altarpiece, whose center (now in the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels) shows the Virgin and Child enthroned...
A gifted follower of Perugino, Lo Spagna expanded on the master’s calm style in numerous works made for Perugia and the surrounding region of Umbria. This panel represents Catherine Benincasa of Siena (1347–1380), who was one of the major religious figures and most influential women of the late...
Jerome and Catherine sit on a grass-covered bench before some rose bushes. The two saints can be identified by their attributes: Jerome with the lion, and Catherine with the sword and the broken wheel. Catherine was the daughter of a king and served as a role model for wealthy...
The Virgin wears a bright red dress—likely representing the Holy Spirit or presence of God. She also wears a light blue veil and dark blue shawl—representing heavenly grace. She is bathed in light which emanates from her holy infant, Jesus Christ.
As Christ stumbled under the weight of the cross that he bore on the way to his crucifixion, Saint Veronica comforted him and wiped the blood and sweat from his face with her veil. The frontal view adopted in this portrait recalls the depiction of Christ’s face as it...
Two of Christ's followers, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, carry his body from the cross to the tomb. Mary, his mother, kneels and pulls her son's face close to hers for one last moment, while Mary Magdalene kneels tearfully at his feet in splendid brocaded robes....
Drawn from the Old Testament, a series of continuous narratives depicts episodes from the life of Joseph, the favorite son of the Hebrew patriarch Jacob. To make the story easier to follow, Biagio d'Antonio included inscriptions identifying the principal characters. In the left-hand loggia, Jacob, seated on...
Although he was reportedly a prolific painter, this panel is one of only seven paintings by Martin Schongauer in existence today. It belongs to a group of four Andachtsbilder, or devotional paintings, created near the end of his life. In his engravings Schongauer already had explored the theme of the...
Christ, haggard and sorrowful, weeps copiously. He wears the Crown of Thorns; its vicious spines pierce his forehead and his right eyebrow and extend menacingly outwards, accentuated by the brilliant golden radiance behind him. Blood from his wounds runs through his hair, down the neckline of his cloak and beneath...
Drops of blood are visible on Christ's brow as he carries the cross to his Crucifixion. The immediacy of this close-up image invites the viewer to contemplate the pain and meaning of Christ's sacrifice. Associated with Leonardo da Vinci, Marco d'Oggiono subtly manipulated...
Saint Augustine is a giant in many ways. He had a powerful and forceful personality which he used both before and after his conversion. He had a passion for whatever he did, and this showed up in his theological teachings. Yet Augustine was also a man of great love, as...
Gertrude, a Benedictine nun in Helfta, Saxony, was one of the great mystics of the 13th century. Together with her friend and teacher Saint Mechtild, she practiced a spirituality called “nuptial mysticism,” that is, she came to see herself as the bride of Christ. Her spiritual life was a deeply...
This painting was once a panel from the important five-panel altarpiece commissioned by Queen Isabella for the Carthusian monastery of Miraflores near Burgos, site of the royal tombs of her parents and brother. The altarpiece, of which the other panels survive, was likely painted during the artist’s early...
Bernat Martorell was the greatest painter of the first half of the fifteenth century in Catalonia in northeastern Spain. Depicted here is the most frequently represented episode from the popular legend of Saint George, in which the model Christian knight saves a town and rescues a beautiful princess. Conceived in...
Saint Paul and Saint Sirus are panel paintings likely from the same large altarpiece. Panel painting was a lengthy process that required many steps. The panel is a plank of wood that was prepared with many layers of gesso, a glue-size-chalk substance that forms the white base layer...
These panels depicting Saints Anthony the Abbot and Michael originally flanked a central scene of the Madonna and Child with Angels, now lost, to form a triptych. Giovanni di Cosimo de’Medici of Florence commissioned the ensemble in 1457 as a gift to Alfonso V of Aragon. Fra Filippo Lippi,...
Little is known about the life and career of Sint Jans. He seems to have been born in Haarlem in Holland in the northern Low Countries where he may have been attached to the Knights of Saint John as a lay brother, and likely produced an altarpiece for that order....
Correggio spent most of his brief career in the northern Italian city of Parma. Removed from the great centers of Renaissance art, he was able to create a remarkably innovative body of work. This intimate devotional panel is a product of the artist’s youth. Here Correggio revealed his own...
