Vatican Museums

The large altarpiece with the Madonna and Child in Glory with Saints was painted between 1522 and 1526 for the great altar of the Church of San Nicolò della Lattuga in Campo dei Frari in Venice, better known as San Nicolò dei Frari. It was purchased by Pope Clement XIV (1769-1774) for the pontifical Quirinal Palace, where in 1786 it was admired by Goethe, and from 1820 it entered the Vatican Pinacoteca of Pope Pius VII (1800-1823). The painting, originally arched (that is, curved in the upper part, where the dove of the Holy Spirit was depicted) shows the Virgin with the Child and angels in the clouds, and below, the Saints Catherine of Alexandria, Nicholas of Bari, Peter, Anthony of Padua, Francis of Assisi and Sebastian. It is a work of the full maturity of the artist who, having overcome the early teachings of Bellini and Giorgione, is shown here to be an independent and fully established figure in his own right.