Crucifixion with the Virgin and St. John the Baptist, St. Mary Magdalen, St. John the Evangelist and St. Augustine

In the Ferrara of Duke Alfonso d'Este, the new painting arrived from Venice. Bellini had delivered a bacchanal for the duke's private study in 1514, and by about 1520 Titian was working on more of them. This panel, made around that time for the Augustinian monastery in the city, reaches the other way. Angels hover at the cross catching Christ's blood in cups, a medieval motif most painters of Ortolano's generation had let go.

Brera reads that archaism as a choice, a search for plainness worked out of Raphael's compositions, and points to the hard light cutting the figures out against a bright sky.

The Napoleonic suppression emptied the monastery and the panel passed into private hands in Ferrara. The city's largest collection went to a Roman dealer in 1904, and the Italian state bought this picture back the year after.