Crucifixion

When this was painted, in the years around 1517, Venetian workshops were full of prints coming down from the north, and Albrecht Dürer had spent time in the city only a decade earlier. You can feel that northern eye here. Christ hangs alone at the center, without the two thieves who usually flank him, while the Virgin, Saint John and Mary Magdalene grieve close to the cross in quiet, measured poses. What holds you, though, is everything behind them. The hill of Golgotha opens onto a wide mainland landscape: a walled town with a heavy castle keep, riders on elegant horses, small figures gathering around a ladder, banners scattered into the distance, and storm clouds massing over the whole scene. The windblown loincloth and that restless sky owe a great deal to German engravings, softened into Previtali's gentler, more pastoral world. For a long time the picture passed as a work by Lorenzo Lotto. It was the connoisseur Giovanni Morelli who, in 1886, gave it back to Previtali.