Room 59

Architecture and Illusion: Painting in Ferrara, Lombardy and the Veneto 1450–1500

In the decades before 1500, artists in Italy participated in contemporary debate about the relative value of painting and sculpture. This discussion was known as the paragone (comparison). How could painting represent three-dimensional objects in space? The works in this room present a variety of answers to that question.

Artists of all kinds looked to the art and architecture of the ancient world. The painter Francesco Squarcione ran a studio in Padua where young artists could learn from his collection of Greek and Roman statues. Carlo Crivelli, Mantegna and Cosimo Tura were among his pupils. Their paintings present architectural structures that are solid yet made of extraordinary materials. Marble, metalwork, wood, even a cucumber, are all represented with playful accuracy.

Cima da Conegliano’s altarpieces were made for patrons across the Veneto and beyond. In the Incredulity of Saint Thomas, the simple architectural setting draws our gaze to Christ’s idealised body. Distant landscapes strengthen the illusion of being close to the holy figures, who are located just the other side of a marble ledge.

Paintings in this room

The Dead Christ supported by Two Angels

Giovanni Bellini

This type of image of Christ after his death – close up, showing his naked torso – originated in Byzantium (the Eastern Christian empire) but was very popular in Italy from about the thirteenth century. It was supposed to promote meditation upon Christ’s suffering and death.Christ is supported by...

Room 59

The Virgin and Child

Giovanni Bellini

Small-scale images of the Virgin and Child made for private worship were a speciality of Bellini’s. This picture was thought to be by the artist’s assistants, but recent technical analysis showed that it was made by Bellini. The holy figures are separated from a landscape by a cloth of honour, an...

Room 59

Christ Crowned with Thorns

Giovanni Battista Cima da Conegliano

Christ’s head is shown in vivid close up in this little picture, his pale face and brilliant robe stark against the black background. Bright light falling from the left allows us to see every pitiful detail: the thorns thrust into his forehead, the blood dripping down his face and his red-rimmed...

Room 59

The Incredulity of Saint Thomas

Giovanni Battista Cima da Conegliano

The rich colours of this large painting were designed to make maximum impact. Commissioned by a confraternity dedicated to Saint Thomas, it shows the moment that the doubting saint was convinced of Christ’s resurrection. We see him place his fingers in Christ’s wound, checking that Christ had ind...

Room 59

The Virgin and Child

Giovanni Battista Cima da Conegliano

This was one of Cima da Conegliano’s most popular designs, and he and his workshop produced a number of versions of it. The Virgin Mary sits on a marble bench in front of a sunlit Italian landscape, her body forming a solid mass which we can almost feel pressing down on the cool stone. There is h...

Room 59

Saint Vincent Ferrer

Francesco del Cossa

Saint Vincent Ferrer was a Spanish friar and missionary, and a member of the Dominican Order (the religious order founded by Saint Dominic); he was officially declared a saint in 1455. He is shown raising a finger demonstratively: he was known as a passionate preacher whose stirring sermons somet...

Room 59

The Annunciation, with Saint Emidius

Carlo Crivelli

The Archangel Gabriel descends from God to tell the Virgin that she is to bear a child – a moment known as the Annunciation – but has been distracted from his mission by a bishop saint, who has stopped him in the street of a Renaissance town. This is Saint Emidius, patron saint of the town of Asc...

Room 59

The Dead Christ supported by Two Angels

Carlo Crivelli

This arched panel was originally the top of a polyptych (a multi-panelled altarpiece) which Crivelli painted for the Franciscan church at Montefiore dell'Aso near Fermo in the Italian Marches.Two sad, child-like angels hold up Christ’s lifeless body, one nestling his head sorrowfully against Jesu...

Room 59

The Vision of the Blessed Gabriele

Carlo Crivelli

This tall, narrow panel once hung over the tomb of a Franciscan holy man, the Blessed Gabriele Ferretti (d. 1456). Gabriele was Superior of the small convent of San Francesco in Alto outside Ancona in the Italian Marche. He was famous locally for his fervent piety and for his visions of the Virgi...

Room 59

Saint Jerome

Cosimo Tura

Saint Jerome spent two years in the desert, living a life of poverty and self-denial. As a punishment for sinful thoughts, he would – as we see here – beat his body until it bled. He was originally shown looking towards a vision of Christ, arms outstretched on a cross made of beams of light. This...

Room 59

The Virgin and Child Enthroned

Cosimo Tura

The Virgin Mary sits on a high marble throne with a curved back, the naked Christ Child asleep in her lap. An eagle crowns the throne. It – like the winged lion, bull and reading man – symbolises one of the authors of the Gospels. The Old Testament is evoked by the stone tablets to either side of...

Room 59