Saint Bernard genuflected

Tempera on panel representing Saint Bernard genuflected on a step before a balustrade. The Saint has his eyes turned to the Holy Spirit who appears on top of the painting surrounded by cherubim.
On the background, there is an architectural setting with two openings overlooking a mountainous landscape with a small wild fig tree. The painting, considerably damaged, is of excellent pictorial quality and by right it is included in the "Mannerist" taste of the time even if it is out of the traditional Baroque schemes and describes the Saint's moment of life and vision, evoking Barocci's sketch for the "Stigmata of Saint Francis" in Fossombrone. The author is unknown, but he certainly belongs to that group of collaborators such as Ridolfi, Palazzini or Bellini who, in the seventeenth century cooperated with Federico Barocci, from Urbino, certainly the best late Renaissance painter from the Marche, after Raphael.
The work comes from the demolished Parish Church of Saint Damian and has been recently restored and cleaned up by nineteenth-century alterations.