sacra conversazione

sacra conversazione (Italian: ‘holy conversation’).
A representation of the Virgin and Child with saints in which all the sacred personages are disposed in a single pictorial space rather than in the separate compartments of a polyptych; usually the figures commune silently, rather than actually conversing. The type originated in Italy in the first half of the 15th century: Filippo Lippi's Barbadori Altarpiece (begun 1437, Louvre, Paris) is perhaps the first dated example.