Description
The Santa Trinita Maestà is one of Cimabue's culminating achievements and a fundamental work for understanding the transformation of Italian painting on the threshold of the Trecento. Created as a monumental altarpiece for the Vallumbrosan church of Santa Trinita in Florence, it depicts the Virgin and Child seated upon an imposing architectural throne, surrounded by eight angels and accompanied below by Jeremiah, Abraham, David and Isaiah.
The composition combines the solemn authority of Byzantine tradition with an increasingly ambitious search for bodily presence, spatial depth and human expression. Mary occupies the absolute centre and dominates the painting through her monumental scale. Seated upon the throne, she supports the Child with her left arm while pointing toward him with her right hand.
