The Altarpiece of the Halberd is an oil-on-canvas painting created ca.1539 by the Italian High Renaissance painter Lorenzo Lotto. It is housed in the

Pinacoteca civica Francesco Podesti A pinacotheca (Latin borrowing from grc, πινακοθήκη, pinakothēkē = grc, πίναξ, pinax, (painted) board, tablet, label=none + grc, θήκη, thēkē, box, chest, label=none) was a picture gallery in either ancient Greece or anc ...

Ancona Ancona (, also , ) is a city and a seaport in the Marche region in central Italy, with a population of around 101,997 . Ancona is the capital of the province of Ancona and of the region. The city is located northeast of Rome, on the Adriatic S ...

, central Italy.

History

The work was seen by the art biographer Giorgio Vasari in the church of Sant'Agostino in Ancona, where Lotto had fled in reply to the hostility received in Venice. It was later moved to the church of

Santa Maria della Piazza Santa Maria della Piazza is a church in Ancona, central Italy. The church, a fine example of Romanesque architecture in the city, was erected between the 11th and the 12th centuries. Before its construction, the site was home to two small Palaeo ...

and, after other locations, the current one. The painting dates to a few years after the coup by which Ancona had been restored to the

Papal States The Papal States ( ; it, Stato Pontificio, ), officially the State of the Church ( it, Stato della Chiesa, ; la, Status Ecclesiasticus;), were a series of territories in the Italian Peninsula under the direct sovereign rule of the pope fro ...

. The resistance had been brutally suppressed, many of the rebels having been beheaded by order of the papal legate. The upside-down

halberd A halberd (also called halbard, halbert or Swiss voulge) is a two-handed pole weapon that came to prominent use during the 13th, 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries. The word ''halberd'' is cognate with the German word ''Hellebarde'', deriving from ...

has been thus interpreted as a symbol of peace.

Description

The monumental composition is taken directly from the tradition of

Holy Conversation In art, a (; plural: ''sacre conversazioni''), meaning holy (or sacred) conversation, is a genre developed in Italian Renaissance painting, with a depiction of the Virgin and Child (the Virgin Mary with the infant Jesus) amidst a group of saint ...

s in the Venetian School, inaugurated by Antonello da Messina's

San Cassiano Altarpiece The ''San Cassiano Altarpiece'' is a painting by the Italian Renaissance master Antonello da Messina, dating to 1475–1476. Commissioned for the church of San Cassiano in Venice, it was disassembled in the early 17th-century and the reunited cen ...

. It shows the Madonna and Child on a high throne, with two angels holding the crown (a 15th-century Flemish painting element also in use in Italy). In the lower part are four saints: Stephen, John the Evangelist,

Simon the Zealot Simon the Zealot (, ) or Simon the Canaanite or Simon the Canaanean (, ; grc-gre, Σίμων ὁ Κανανίτης; cop, ⲥⲓⲙⲱⲛ ⲡⲓ-ⲕⲁⲛⲁⲛⲉⲟⲥ; syc, ܫܡܥܘܢ ܩܢܢܝܐ) was one of the most obscure among the apostl ...

and

Lawrence Lawrence may refer to: Education Colleges and universities * Lawrence Technological University, a university in Southfield, Michigan, United States * Lawrence University, a liberal arts university in Appleton, Wisconsin, United States Preparator ...

. Simon is holding the

which gives its name to the altarpiece. At the sides of the throne, between columns and draperies, are two sections of sky with clouds. As in other paintings by Lotto, the symmetry is broken by the variety of postures and gestures. The work is characterized by a certain archaic style, explainable by the relatively provincial commissioners and the late stage of his career.

Sources

* {{16C-painting-stub 1539 paintings Paintings of the Madonna and Child by Lorenzo Lotto Paintings of Saint Stephen Paintings in Ancona Altarpieces Angels in art