Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints Zeno and Nicholas

Look at what the Virgin is standing on and what hangs behind her throne. Two carpets, one green and worked with arabesques and pomegranates, the other draped over the throne back. Verona had been a Venetian city for a hundred years when this was painted, and Venice was where carpets from the eastern Mediterranean came ashore. Painters learned to put them into altarpieces as a mark of honour, the way a rich house would. Cataloguers who have looked closely at these two think they are local imitations rather than imports, woven in Italy in the eastern manner.

The bishop on one side is Zeno, Verona's own patron, which fixes the picture to that city as firmly as a signature. It was made around 1502 to 1504 for the church of Santa Maria della Pigna there, in tempera on canvas rather than the panel you would expect, another Venetian habit. It hangs in Milan now because of the Napoleonic suppressions of Italian churches, and the number the Brera still uses for it comes from that inventory.