LOCATION: Aosta, Cathedral, deambulatory window E

DIMENSIONS: in the same window, we find two different parts, which measure 86 cms. x 76 cms. together.

PROVENANCE: original location (?)

CHRONOLOGY: beginning of the XVI century

AUTHORS: local school

PATRONAGE: the donor is not known

SUBJECT: head of St. Catherine of Alexandria (?), IV century. Nobility. Learned in science and oratory. Feast 25 November. Ranked with St. Margareth and St. Barbara as one of the fourteen most helpful saints in heaven, she has been represented as a young Christian virgin martyr with fair hair, wearing a rich headgear. Two columns and a festoon as architectonic framing. The vivid-coloured lunette in the upper panel represents Hercules taming one of Diomedes’ man-eating mares, a putto on each side.

CRITICAL NOTES: the composition has many elements in common with St. Margareth window. / see Aosta cattedrale deambulatorio 5)The same subject – as well as the figure of St. Margareth and the Assumption of the Virgin – may be found at Issogne Castle as well as beyond the Alps.

CONDITIONS: in very bad state of preservation: some grisaille fell, several repaintings and breakings.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bibl. Cattedrale di Aosta

PHOTOGRAPHIC REFERENCE: Archivio CVMA Italia – Dono Mons. Garino

EDITOR: Emanuela Linda Cappa, May 2003