Miracle of the Relic of the Holy Cross

On 10 March 1480 a small boy in Venice fell from the loft of his family's house and was not expected to live. He was the son of Alvise Finetti, a scribe at the city's loans office, and his recovery was credited to a fragment of the True Cross kept by the confraternity of San Giovanni Evangelista. Years later the brotherhood had that recovery painted for its meeting hall, one of nine large canvases telling the relic's miracles, and this tall panel is Diana's contribution. Instead of a church he chose the courtyard of an ordinary Venetian palace, its figures gathered on the open stairs and along the balconies as if the whole household had spilled outside. The narrow, upright shape let him stack that architecture floor above floor. The light-filled space owes a good deal to Vittore Carpaccio, who was painting his own scenes for the same room.