Martyrdom of the Pilgrims and Funeral of Saint Ursula

This is one canvas doing the work of two paintings. A single column runs up the middle, and it carries the coat of arms of the Loredan, the Venetian family who paid for the picture. To the left of it Carpaccio painted the slaughter: outside the walls of Cologne the Huns cut down Ursula and her companions, and an archer draws his bow on the kneeling princess herself. To the right of that shaft the noise stops, and her body is carried in a slow funeral procession. He finished it in 1493 for the hall of a Venetian lay confraternity, where members stood close enough to read the family arms on the dividing column. The two halves share one long stretch of pale sky.