Christ Giving His Blood

In the spring of 1543 the Church was quarrelling over what exactly happens to the wine at Mass. Two years earlier, at Regensburg, Catholic and Protestant theologians had come close to agreement on several points and then broken off over the Eucharist. That May, in Treviso, Lotto finished this small panel for Federico Priuli, a Venetian patrician, and described it himself as a triumph of the Saviour pouring out his blood in the act of the sacrament.

The risen Christ floats among crowds of small angels with his arms spread as if still on the cross, while other angels carry the nails and the crown of thorns. From the wound in his side the blood runs down into a gold chalice held by an angel in red. At the bottom a naked woman lifts her arms, a mirror in one hand, and nobody agrees who she is. Mary Magdalene, Eve and a figure of heresy have all been proposed.

Priuli did not like the picture. He argued over the price and in the end asked Lotto to paint him a different small panel instead.