Stories of Saint Catherine of Alexandria

The two panels, originally part of a tabernacle depicting scenes from the life of Saint Catherine of Alexandria, come from the Convent of Santa Caterina Martire intra moènia in L’Aquila. They were most likely moved there after the abandonment of the earlier Convent of Santa Caterina extra moènia in San Vittorino (L’Aquila), following the plague of 1368. This theory suggests a common origin with the wooden statue of Saint Catherine of Alexandria displayed here, and leaves open the possibility that the panels and the statue once were part of the same tabernacle. The scenes follow the Stories of Saint Catherine from the Golden Legend by Jacobus de Voragine. Catherine refuses to worship idols; the dispute with the philosophers and their subsequent martyrdom; the flagellation of Catherine; the conversion of the wife of Emperor Maxentius and the chief of the guards, Porphyry; Catherine subjected to torture on spiked wheels, miraculously destroyed by an angel; finally, her martyrdom by beheading and the transport of her body to Mount Sinai.