The Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence

Titian worked on this altarpiece for roughly a decade, finishing around 1558, and set the whole scene at night. Saint Lawrence, a deacon of early Christian Rome, was said to have been roasted alive on a gridiron, and Titian lit the picture almost entirely by fire. Torches, the coals under the grill, and a single shaft of pale light breaking through the clouds pull the figures out of near-total darkness. It was one of the most ambitious night scenes Venetian painting had yet attempted, and the young Tintoretto, Titian's rival across the city, clearly studied its effects. Philip II of Spain admired it enough to order a second version years later for his palace-monastery outside Madrid, at El Escorial.