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Male saints around the Virgin
Saints can often be identified in religious paintings by their 'attribute', a symbolic object that has special reference to their life or manner of their death. In the Daddi tryptych the following saints surrounding the Virgin and Child can be identified:
St John the Baptist: recognisable for his unkempt appearance and for wearing a tunic of animal skins, symbolising the time he spent living in the desert, preaching about the coming of the Messiah and baptising with water those who repented their sins:
And John was clothed with camel's hair, and with a girdle of a skin about his loins.. [Mark 1:6].
He is also seen holding a special attribute of his, a reed cross with a long slender stem.
St Francis of Assisi: wears a brown habit of the Order of Friars Minor, or Franciscans, of which he was the founder. His hands show the stigmata - marks corresponding to the Christ's wounds on the Cross.
Saints
Symbols, gestures and attributes
What was its function
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