Madonna di Ca' Pesaro by Tiziano Vecellio (Titian)
by Mary Elizabeth Podles
In 1518, the Pesaro family acquired a side chapel in the Basilica di Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, the Franciscan church in Venice, to use as a funerary -memorial. Titian, who had just finished a glorious Assumption for the main altar, was seized upon to do the decoration. The altarpiece he designed, the Pesaro -Madonna, combines several types of pictures familiar to Venetians of the day into one. It is a Sacra Conversazione, in which the Madonna enthroned communes with a gathering of saints; it is an ex voto, an offering given in thanks for favors received; and it is a family portrait, a statement about the stature and character of the people portrayed.
If we start by identifying the cast of characters, we will quickly unravel what the painter had in mind. -Starting at the lower left, the kneeling figure in black is Jacopo Pesaro, who commissioned the altarpiece. Jacopo was bishop of Paphos on Cyprus and keeper of the Papal Galleys under Pope Alexander VI. In 1502, his ships scored a major victory over the Turks, for which the painting is a thank offering. Behind Jacopo stands a soldier unfurling a great red standard bearing both the papal and the Pesaro arms, and instead of a finial, the olive branch of peace. He turns his head toward a turbaned figure at the far left, presumably a captured Turk.
The soldier may be more than an ordinary soldier. He stands up a step from Jacopo, on a level with the saints, and may therefore be St. George, foe of heresy (usually represented as a dragon), but here turning amicably toward the heretical Muslim under the banner of peace, and presenting him to St. Peter, patron saint of the pope and the Church at large.
THIS ARTICLE ONLY AVAILABLE TO SUBSCRIBERS.
FOR QUICK ACCESS:
Mary Elizabeth Podles is the retired curator of Renaissance and Baroque art at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland. She and her husband Leon, a Touchstone senior editor, have six children and live in Baltimore, Maryland.
Get six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for only $39.95. That's only $3.34 per month!
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95. That's only $1.66 per month!
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more on art from the online archives
33.2—March/April 2020
An Architectural Sign of Mere Christianity by Michael Ward
32.4—July/August 2019
on Single-Mindedness in Durer's Ritter, Tod, und Teufel by Anthony Costello
more from the online archives
33.1—January/February 2020
Speaking Truth About the Sexes Is Not Optional by Anthony Esolen
32.6—November/December 2019
The Year of Our Lord 1943: Christian Humanism in an Age of Crisis by Alan Jacobs by Jesse Russell
32.2—March/April 2019
Reality Shows, Even in a Popular TV Series by C. E. Smith
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
