Die heilige Lucia vor dem Richter

Lorenzo Lotto signed the contract for this altarpiece in Jesi, a town in the Marche, in December 1523, and travelled there specially to do it. Then it sat. He kept the commission waiting so long that the confraternity who ordered it nearly took it back, and he did not finish until 1532, nine years on. What he eventually delivered is unusual for an altarpiece. Instead of the usual row of saints standing in a sacred space, the main panel tells a story: Saint Lucy hauled before a Roman judge, refusing to renounce her faith, the crowd and the columns pressing in around her. Below it, three small predella panels carry the rest of her legend.