Well here you get the genius idea of placing the paintings intended for private devotional use in smaller, darker rooms, reminiscent of side chapels, while the great long space that unites them is like the nave of a church between one altarpiece and another. That big basilical space displays works that were intended for churches, for public space. There’s a great hanging cross by Segna di Bonaventura suspended from the ceiling as it would have done in the fourteenth century, recalling a rood screen, before the San Piero Maggiore Altarpiece at the end. This great work is presented as complete as possible, in a recreation of the original frame. A little distance before it is a panel from the base of another altarpiece. The effect, seen from a distance, is of being in church.
