Reliquaries are precious containers for the relics of holy persons. Here the small glass roundels would have held fragments believed to be the bones of saints or other items. One side of the painting depicts the Crucifixion and above it, John the Baptist. The other side shows a Franciscan saint before a vision of Christ, the Virgin, and perhaps Saint Peter. A male saint, dressed in red and holding a palm of martyrdom, is painted in the pinnacle above. The artist, known for the smooth draperies of his figures, has long been called the Master of the Osservanza, after a painting by the same hand in a church near Siena. Some scholars now believe this group of works to be by Sano di Pietro, a 15th-century Sienese painter. The reliquary was first restored as early as the 18th century, when some of the glass roundels and identifying labels were replaced.

---