Scenes from the Life of St Thomas

This panel, together with three others also in the Edinburgh museum and a fifth in the Vatican formed the predella of an altarpiece. It seems likely that this predella was originally attached to a polyptych, now in the Pinacoteca Nazionale in Siena. This polyptych, representing the Virgin and Child with Saints was signed and dated by both Niccolò di Ser Sozzo and Luca di Tomm�. While critics are divided about the respective roles of the two painters in designing and executing the principal panels of the triptych, this does not extend to the predella by Luca di Tomm�.

The predella panels illustrate the less familiar story of St Thomas’s sea journey to southern India, his foundation of a Christian church there, and his eventual martyrdom. This panel depicts the following scene: A butler strikes St Thomas at a wedding feast; the butler’s severed hand is then brought to St Thomas in the mouth of a dog.