Votive Panels and Popular Piety in Early Modern Italy

In the late fifteenth century, votive panel paintings, or tavolette votive, began to accumulate around reliquary shrines and miracle-working images throughout Italy. Fredrika H. Jacobs traces the origins and development of the use of votive panels. She examines the form, context and functional value of votive panels, and how they created meaning for the person who dedicated the image to a saint.