Alessandro Agolanti (Design of Domenico Ghirlandaio)
St. Lawrence
1491
Stained glass
Capella Maggiore, Santa Maria Novella, Florence
St. Lawrence is identified by the inscription below the portrait and by the gridiron, book, and
dalmatic,
the sleeved outergarment worn at Mass by deacons
traditional emblems identifying him. It is also common to portray him as a young man without a beard.
Much less common is the blue stole that we see emerging from his left sleeve. Like all liturgical stoles it is marked with crosses and fringed at the end. Traditionally, deacons did wear stoles at Mass under their dalmatics, but hanging straight down from the left shoulder in front and back, not in the sleeve. Real stoles were in liturgical colors and probably never blue.1
Even more curious is the cloth piece hanging from the saint's shoulders. It seems to be modeled on the breastplate worn by the Jewish high priest in ancient times, but without the twelve stones prescribed in Exodus 28:17-20.
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Photographed at the chapel by Richard Stracke, shared under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.