The ''Martinengo Pietà'' is an oil painting on panel of by Giovanni Bellini, signed on the rock to the left of the Virgin. It was previously in the collections of the Martinengo family and of Donà delle Rose and is now in the

Gallerie dell'Accademia The Gallerie dell'Accademia is a museum gallery of pre-19th-century art in Venice, northern Italy. It is housed in the Scuola della Carità on the south bank of the Grand Canal, within the sestiere of Dorsoduro. It was originally the gallery o ...

Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The isla ...

. One of Bellini's last works, it still shows him adapting to innovations by

Titian Tiziano Vecelli or Vecellio (; 27 August 1576), known in English as Titian ( ), was an Italian (Venetian) painter of the Renaissance, considered the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, nea ...

and

Giorgione Giorgione (, , ; born Giorgio Barbarelli da Castelfranco; 1477–78 or 1473–74 – 17 September 1510) was an Italian painter of the Venetian school during the High Renaissance, who died in his thirties. He is known for the elusive poetic quali ...

and incorporating elements of the ''Vesperbild'', the German variant on the

pietà The Pietà (; meaning " pity", "compassion") is a subject in Christian art depicting the Virgin Mary cradling the dead body of Jesus after his body was removed from the cross. It is most often found in sculpture. The Pietà is a specific form ...

. Albrecht Dürer was in Venice at this time and the work's contorted hands and sharply defined drapery recall his work. It was the last pietà Bellini painted, around the same time as the

San Zaccaria Altarpiece The ''San Zaccaria Altarpiece'' (also called ''Madonna Enthroned with Child and Saints'') is a painting by the Italian Renaissance painter Giovanni Bellini, executed in 1505 and located in the church of San Zaccaria, Venice. History The work w ...

. A lawn encloses the figures, suggesting the Marian symbol of the

hortus conclusus ''Hortus conclusus'' is a Latin term, meaning literally "enclosed garden". At their root, both of the words in ''hortus conclusus'' refer linguistically to enclosure. It describes a genre of garden that was enclosed as a practical concern, a majo ...

. Behind it is a desert with a symbolic

fig tree ''Ficus'' ( or ) is a genus of about 850 species of woody trees, shrubs, vines, epiphytes and hemiepiphytes in the family Moraceae. Collectively known as fig trees or figs, they are native throughout the tropics with a few species extending ...

, as well as buildings based on the structures in

Vicenza Vicenza ( , ; ) is a city in northeastern Italy. It is in the Veneto region at the northern base of the ''Monte Berico'', where it straddles the Bacchiglione River. Vicenza is approximately west of Venice and east of Milan. Vicenza is a thr ...

(the

duomo ''Duomo'' (, ) is an Italian term for a church with the features of, or having been built to serve as, a cathedral, whether or not it currently plays this role. Monza Cathedral, for example, has never been a diocesan seat and is by definition n ...

, the Torre, the

Basilica Palladiana The Basilica Palladiana is a Renaissance building in the central Piazza dei Signori in Vicenza, north-eastern Italy. The most notable feature of the edifice is the loggia, which shows one of the first examples of what have come to be known as ...

Ravenna Ravenna ( , , also ; rgn, Ravèna) is the capital city of the Province of Ravenna, in the Emilia-Romagna region of Northern Italy. It was the capital city of the Western Roman Empire from 408 until its collapse in 476. It then served as the ca ...

(the bell tower of Sant'Apollinare) and

Cividale Cividale del Friuli ( fur, Cividât (locally ); german: Östrich; sl, Čedad) is a town and '' comune'' in the Province of Udine, part of the North-Italian Friuli Venezia Giulia ''regione''. The town lies above sea-level in the foothills of the ...

(its Ponte del Diavolo, a bridge over the

Natisone The Natisone ( fur, Nadison; sl, Nadiža; la, Natiso) is a river in Slovenia and Italy. It flows for some time as a border river between Slovenia and Italy, continues in Slovenia and then crosses the border and continues in Eastern Friuli, in no ...

References

{{Giovanni Bellini paintings by Giovanni Bellini Paintings in the Gallerie dell'Accademia category:1505 paintings