Madonna della Misericordia with Saints John the Baptist and John the Evangelist and the Annunciation

The Virgin stands at the centre and opens her cloak, and beneath it a cluster of tiny kneeling figures shelters against her. This is the Madonna della Misericordia, the Madonna of Mercy, a protective image that confraternities loved. The worshippers are painted small on purpose. In this older way of showing rank, size measures how one stands before the Virgin, so the faithful shrink while she towers over them. To the left and right stand the two Johns, the Baptist in his rough camel skin and the Evangelist with his book. Across the top runs the Annunciation, Gabriel on one side and Mary on the other. Jacobello painted this around 1415 on a gold ground, in the older Venetian manner. The panel entered the Accademia in 1816, left to it by the Venetian collector Girolamo Molin.