Trinity Altarpiece

The words on the green ribbon across this canvas are the ones the Gospels give to the voice from heaven when John baptised Christ in the Jordan. Hic est filius meus dilectus, this is my beloved Son. That is why John the Baptist stands on the right. Above the ribbon God the Father opens his arms among cherubs, with the dove of the Holy Spirit just below him, and the risen Christ stands on a cloud between John and the Virgin, where an inscription at her feet calls her Mater gratiae, mother of grace.

The altarpiece comes from the Fumanelli chapel in the Veronese church of Santa Maria della Vittoria Nuova. The museum places it in the 1510s and takes it for a work of Morone's maturity, while warning that his style barely seems to change over the years, which makes any of his pictures hard to date.