Madonna with Franciscan saints

This masterpiece of Bernardino Licinio shows influence of Giorgione through his fellow-countryman Palma the Elder. On a tall throne sits the Virgin with the Child, while on the left there are St. Francis, St. Mark, St. Bonaventura, St. Clare, and the profile of F. Antonietto of Venice who commissioned the painting. On the right are St. Anthony, St. Andrew, St. Louis, St. John the Baptist and the half-hidden face of a woman, probably St. Elizabeth of Hungary, copatroness of the Secular Order of Franciscans, founded by St. Francis. Bode wrote that this is the best painting of Bernardino Licinio “not for the nobility of expression, but for the splendour of the colour and sense of motion”.