Madonna and Child

Garofalo painted this small panel in 1512 or 1513, while his duke was at war with the pope. Alfonso I d'Este had been excommunicated by Julius II in 1510, and in April 1512 the duke's artillery helped the French defeat the papal and Spanish armies at Ravenna.

The picture itself is under half a metre high and painted in oil on wood, a size suited to prayer in a private room. It is some 15 years older than Garofalo's Annunciation in the same gallery, a canvas of 1528. The panel later belonged to the Pio family in Rome, and in 1750 it was a pope, Benedict XIV, who secured it for the Capitoline.