The Virgin Appearing to Sts John the Baptist and John the Evangelist

Around 1517 Dosso seems to have gone to Rome, and this altarpiece shows what he brought home. It was painted for the parish church of San Martino at Codigoro, near Ferrara, most likely after Cardinal Ippolito d'Este passed through the town, and it is crowded with things to read. The Virgin and Child hover above two saints who share the name John. John the Baptist points to scripture with the words Ecce Agnus Dei, one foot set on a book of the old pagan learning. John the Evangelist holds a chalice with a small serpent rising out of it, a nod to the legend that he once drank from a poisoned cup and lived. Above them a burning disc hints at the visions of the Apocalypse, the book tradition gives to that same Evangelist. In that disc and in the two solid, sculptural saints you can feel Raphael, whose work Dosso had just been studying in Rome.