Bevilacqua-Lazise Altarpiece

This is Veronese near the very start, before Venice made him famous. He was born Paolo Caliari in Verona, and the name we still use for him simply means the man from Verona. In 1548, when he was about 20, the noblewoman Lucrezia Malaspina founded a chapel in the church of San Fermo in memory of her husband, Giovanni Bevilacqua Lazise, and this altarpiece hung over its altar. The Virgin and Child sit above Saint Louis of Toulouse and John the Baptist, with the two donors at the lower edge. The twisted pose of Saint Louis recalls Michelangelo's figures on the Sistine ceiling. The upper part is damaged, including the faces of the Child and the Virgin. The Baptist was first painted pointing at the Virgin, and the museum notes that the change is still visible to the naked eye.