A late fifteenth-century visitor to the church of San Francesco al Prato in Perugia would most likely have approached the structure from the east, probably taking one of the roads leading down from the center of town (Fig. 30). In common with many buildings in a city filled with steep climbs and dramatic vistas, San Francesco sits on a promontory: the terrain starts to descend rapidly beyond the cloisters, making an approach from the west less convenient. Before entering the church, the visitor would probably have paused before the façade of the adjacent oratory of St. Bernardino of Siena (Fig. 31), so as to examine the polychrome marble relief decorations featuring the saint and scenes from his life and miracles. Perhaps the visitor would also have entered the oratory itself to venerate Bernardino, as the structure served as a shrine to the recently canonized saint. Once inside the church of San Francesco (Fig. 32), he or she would likely have quickly encountered, possibly on the rood screen, another depiction of Bernardino and his thaumaturgical power: the so-called Niche of San Bernardino, an ensemble that combined an image of the saint – perhaps a sculpture – with eight painted panels depicting his miracles (Figs. 100, 113, and 116).1