A predella is the long, low strip of small paintings that runs along the bottom of an altarpiece, the large painted panel that stands on or behind the altar of a church. Much wider than it is tall, the strip holds a row of short scenes, often episodes from the lives of the saints or the Virgin who appear large in the picture above.
One altarpiece that kept its predella makes the idea easy to picture. About 1426, the Italian painter Fra Angelico, who was also a friar, a man living under religious vows, painted an Annunciation that is now in the Prado, the national art museum of Spain, in Madrid.
In the large picture, an angel brings Mary the news that she will bear the son of God. Under it, five little scenes from her life sit side by side, each with its own figures and its own setting.
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A footrest for the altarpiece
The name of the strip tells where it sits…
What You'll Discover
How to read the scenes along the bottom.
Why Fra Angelico painted two healer saints.
What happens when a predella is taken apart.
How a predella differs from a polyptych.
What Grünewald and Raphael put beneath their altarpieces.