predella
Americannoun
noun
-
a painting or sculpture or a series of small paintings or sculptures in a long narrow strip forming the lower edge of an altarpiece or the face of an altar step or platform
-
a platform in a church upon which the altar stands
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of predella
First recorded in 1840–50; from Italian, from unattested Langobardic predel, pretel, derivative of pret- “board,” from Germanic bret-, source of Old High German brët ( German Brett ), Old English, Old Saxon bred “board, plank”); conformed in Italian to the diminutive suffix -ella; see -elle, board
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Just as when this painting graced the altar of the Innocenti church, it is displayed above a predella, which shows a series of scenes.
From Washington Post ● Sep. 29, 2016
They added the predella fragments to it, and supplemented it with a selection of four smaller 14th-century altarpieces, intact or partial, from American collections.
From New York Times ● Aug. 10, 2012
Aside from the central “Magi” panel, kept in the Pinacoteca Nazionale in Siena, only two fragments are known to have survived, both from the cut-up predella.
From New York Times ● Aug. 10, 2012
And even as Andrea was assisted by Jacopo in executing the predella, so also was he aided by him in finishing the many pictures and works that Andrea continually had in hand.
From Lives of the most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects Vol 07 (of 10) Tribolo to Il Sodoma by Vasari, Giorgio
There are also some scenes with little figures in the predella and over the tabernacle, all so well executed that the point of a brush could scarcely do what Andrea did with his chisel.
From Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects Vol. 05 ( of 10) Andrea da Fiesole to Lorenzo Lotto by De Vere, Gaston du C.
The altar-pieces to which all this series of predelle belong are unknown.
From Luca Signorelli by Cruttwell, Maud
The two predelle must certainly have been painted within a very short time of one another.
From Luca Signorelli by Cruttwell, Maud
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
