What Is a Predella?
A predella is the long, low strip of small paintings that runs along the bottom of an altarpiece, beneath the main image. While the large panel above shows saints standing in timeless majesty, the predella tells stories: little scenes from their lives, painted in a row like frames in a comic strip.
The big panel is the icon.
The predella is the story underneath it.
Predella at a glance
What it is: the row of small scenes at the base of an altarpiece.
The position: directly under the main panel, near eye level.
The job: to tell stories, usually from the lives of the saints above.
The freedom: small and low, so painters could be more inventive.
The fate: often sawn off and scattered into museums.
The story strip of the altar
An altarpiece works on two levels, and the predella is the lower one.
Up high sits the grand, still image: the enthroned Virgin, a row of saints, painted to be worshipped. Down below, the predella runs a sequence of small narrative panels, often the miracles, martyrdoms or legends of those same saints. Because it sat near eye level, the predella is where a worshipper could lean in and read the story, scene by scene.
The saint stands above in glory. Below, the predella shows how they got there.
Where painters felt free
The small scale of the predella made it a playground.
The main panel had to be formal, hieratic, often gold-grounded and fixed by tradition. The predella, small and secondary, gave the painter room to experiment: lively figures, real landscapes, bold storytelling, fresh perspective. Some of the most charming and inventive painting of the early Renaissance, in glowing tempera and gold, hides in these little strips.
The big panel showed what the painter had to do. The predella showed what they could do.
Part of a bigger structure
The predella belongs to the architecture of the altarpiece.
It forms the base of larger structures like the triptych and the many panelled polyptych, supporting the main tier of saints above. In a grand altarpiece, the predella is the foundation course of a painted building, the step on which the whole sacred structure stands.
It is the plinth of the painting, and the painting on the plinth.
Scattered to the winds
Like the altarpieces they belonged to, predellas were often broken up.
When dealers dismantled altarpieces to sell the parts, the little predella panels were easy to detach and sell one by one. Today a single predella might be spread across several museums and continents, its scenes separated from each other and from the great panel they once sat beneath. Curators piece these sequences back together, at least on paper.
A story painted as one strip now reads across a dozen cities.
Many predella panels now hang alone in museums. The National Gallery of Art holds Duccio’s Nativity from the Maesta, and the National Gallery in London a row of Sassetta’s Saint Francis panels.
Common questions about the predella
What is a predella? The row of small narrative scenes along the base of an altarpiece.
Where is it located? Directly beneath the main panel, usually near eye level.
What does it show? Usually stories from the lives of the saints depicted above.
Why was it more inventive? Being small and secondary, it freed painters to experiment with narrative and perspective.
Why are predella panels scattered? Altarpieces were often broken up, and the small panels sold separately.
The best painting in the room, hiding at the bottom
We instinctively look up, to the big golden saint commanding the altar. But the real surprises often wait at knee height, in the predella.
There, freed from the weight of the icon above, the painter could simply tell a story, and tell it with wit, tenderness and daring. Some of the freshest, most human passages in early Renaissance art are these overlooked little scenes. It is worth crouching down in the gallery. The grandeur is up top, but the storytelling is at the bottom.