Documents regarding the commissioning and execution of the Retable of Saint Paul have not emerged till the present day, however, a detailed stylistic study corresponds to a report that around the year of 1419 the Mdina cathedral was enlarged eastwards by the construction of a choir and transepts. Such development to the cathedral could have presented the opportunity of a major altarpiece commission.
The date of its completion remains problematic as during this period, decades could have elapsed between the commissioning and execution of such an extensive work. There is an abundant amount of evidence of this from Sicily, where patrons were liable to demand richness and grandiosity rather than innovation of style.
The retable is made up of
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Such contracts of work also specified the woods age, dryness and quality needed for the retables. The retable of Saint Paul's subsidiary panels are roughly square shaped with rounded tops and finely cusped. In addition, two apparent methods of manufacture have been employed; the original carpentry, the application of gesso and the background gilding of the two predella panels and the three upper panels were completed before the painting was begun. The other four lateral panels and one predella panel – Beheading and Veneration, had their framing done after the completion of the painting in great detail. The spandrels are decorated with a diamond-shaped motif that are usually found in Aragonese …show more content…
The seashell depicted in the panel, especially the scallop, is the symbol of baptism in Christianity. The western European baptismal icon is often shaped like a scallop, or decorated with one, also the dish used by clergyperson to pour water over the heads of the ones ready for baptism is often scallop-shaped. This retable contains both combined rituals of baptism; the submerging and the sprinkling of water as the latter practice took over completely in certain parts of the Mediterranean by the sixteenth century. The old baptism portrayal was changed due to the fact that it was becoming the norm to baptize infants, therefore from the depiction of submerged images to the raised ones such as the Mdina retable. Moreover, Ananias is represented as an elderly man wearing ecclesiastical garments from the twelfth