Madonna Enthroned with Saints Abbondius and Dominic and the Buronzo Family (Buronzo Altarpiece)

In 1514 Vercelli was a town of the Duchy of Savoy, and Domenico Buronzo had served its duke, Charles, as a ducal referendary, an official of the duke's council. After his death his widow Ludovica commissioned this altarpiece for the family chapel of Sant'Abbondio in San Paolo, the church of the Dominican friars in Vercelli. She appears in it with her sons Pietro and Gerolamo, presented to the Virgin by Abbondius, an early bishop of Como to whom the chapel was dedicated, and by Dominic, founder of the friars' order.

Gerolamo Giovenone signed and dated the panel on a small scroll at the foot of the throne. The museum counts it an early example of an altarpiece built as a single unified space, with the Virgin, the saints and the donors set together in a fine architectural shrine that opens onto a landscape, and it sees here the first signs of Raphael's compositions in his work. The panel came to Turin in 1836 as a gift of the Marquis Agostino Cusani di Sagliano.