The Novitiate Altarpiece - The Predella
In the predella, or the bottom part, directly under each saint, the individual sections display scenes from the life of that saint: St. Francis receiving the stigmata, Sts. Cosmas and Damian healing a sick man, the Annunciation, the martyrdom of Sts. Cosmas and Damian, and, the last one on the predella, the miracle of a usurer’s heart performed by Saint Anthony of Padua.
In this last scene, St. Anthony reveals during his sermon that the dead usurer’s heart is not in his body but in his strongbox, thus illustrating the biblical saying: “where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Matt. 6:21). On the painting itself, several men have surgically opened the dead usurer’s body and discovered no heart there and that St. Anthony of Padua, dressed in a plain Franciscan robe, is pointing at the scene in another room from behind his pulpit. In the other room, a man discovers the usurer’s heart in a chest full of coins.