Linen panel embroidered with silk and silver and gold thread in split stitch, couched work and or nué. The gold thread is very worn which masks the fact that it would originally have formed a very large proportion of the background, different stitches showing different features.
The picture depicts a scene from the Legend of St Verdiana (Viridiana) Attavanti, recluse and patron saint of Castlefiorentino in Tuscany, northern Italy. To the sound of bells miraculously rung, a group of people enter the saint's cell to find her kneeling dead, while her soul is borne aloft by angels; the snakes whose company she adopted for mortification lie entwined before her. The scene is set in a chamber in which the saint is kneeling at her prayers before a picture; on the walls is a floral pattern. On the left hand side, behind her a group of seven men watch her from beside a belfry, in which two bells swing. Five of the men are tonsured (a sign that they were members of the secular clergy) and the one at the front of the group wears a dalmatic which was originally silver (in or nué technique). Their gestures are of amazement and reverence: the man at the front has his hands raised, palm forward. One figure, whose head alone is visible, holds his hand to his head. Two wear capuccio or chaperons, hoods typical of early 15th-century Tuscany, and long gowns (one with matching sleeves, the other a lucco with slits through which the sleeves of a contrasting undergarment are visible). Their length is indicative of their high status, as short version of the lucco could also be worn. In the centre of the room, above the latticed window, two angels are raising the saint heavenwards. On the left, arms outstretched, a nimbus round her head, St Verdiana kneels before an altar, in front of which writhe two snakes.