Madonna and Child with Saint John the Baptist and Saint John the Evangelist

The fresco dates itself. Across the painted architecture runs the line MCCCCLXXXV DIE X OCTVB, the 10th of October 1485. It was made for the sacristy of Santa Maria di Brera, the church attached to this building, and it sat above a door, which is why the coffered vault over the Virgin rushes away so steeply. Foppa set the perspective for someone standing underneath and looking up. Over the parapet in front of her hangs a carpet with a bold geometric pattern, lifted by a breeze. Carpets like that reached Lombardy through Venice from the eastern Mediterranean and were among the costliest things a household could own, which is why painters used them to mark value in a sacred picture, and it is why this one has always been known in Milan as the Madonna del tappeto, the Madonna of the carpet. The Child's foot comes out over the painted ledge, past the architecture, toward the room below.