Erminia and Vafrino find Tancred wounded

The scene comes from Torquato Tasso's crusader poem Gerusalemme Liberata, hugely popular reading in 18th-century Italy. Erminia, in love with the knight Tancred, comes upon him with her guide Vafrino and finds him lying gravely wounded after a duel. Guardi painted it as part of a set of 14 canvases drawn from the poem, following the celebrated engravings Giambattista Piazzetta had made for a grand 1745 edition. So he is picturing a story most of his viewers already knew by heart, and knew through Piazzetta's images. The canvas only reached the Accademia in 1984, from the collection of Rodolfo Siviero, the official who spent the postwar years recovering Italian artworks that had been taken abroad.