The work, surrounded by a rich carved and painted wooden frame, shows in the upper register the Holy Trinity in the act of placing a crown on the head of the Virgin Mary and in the lower register four figures of saints contemplating the scene. Recognisable by their iconographic attributes, starting from the right, are St. Anthony Abbot, St. Bartholomew Apostle, St. Calogero the hermit and a bishop who can be identified with St. Agathon, the first bishop of Lipari, or with St. Peter Thomas (bishop of Lipari – Patti from 1354 to 1359), a pious Carmelite and very active diplomat, later designated by the Holy See as archbishop of Crete and Latin patriarch of Constantinople (+1366).
The work comes from the high altar of the small church of St. Anthony Abbot, which stands in an alley behind the square in Marina Corta, but which originally – before the expansion of the settlement – must have faced directly onto the sea. Erected towards the end of the 16th century out of devotion to Our Lady of the Assumption, with the restoration carried out in the mid-16th century, the devotion to St Antony Abbot was introduced there, with its Confraternity, from which it took its present name.
According to the inventories and the holes in the canvas, the painting was adorned with a silver half-crown on the head of the Virgin, a pair of gold earrings and a half-moon under her feet; and again: a silver half-crown on the forehead of St Bartholomew and a small knife in his hand.
An image of Our Lady of Sorrows, St Francis of Paola and St Anthony Abbot are attested in the same church.
