Chiesa di San Domenico

Cingoli sits high in the hills of the Marche, and in 1537 its Dominican friars needed help. The Confraternity of the Rosary had ordered a new altarpiece for their church of San Domenico, but the alms they collected fell short, so the prior asked the town council to contribute. The town paid 40 florins in December 1539, by which time Lorenzo Lotto, the Venetian painter, had finished the work.

His Madonna of the Rosary shows the Virgin handing the rosary to Saint Dominic, while Exuperantius, the town's patron saint, kneels on the other side holding a model of Cingoli. Above them, 15 small round scenes of the rosary's mysteries hang among the bushes of a rose garden, like lanterns against a darkening sky. Below, the infant John the Baptist and two cherubs scatter rose petals.

The church is younger than the painting. The medieval building was pulled down in 1727 and rebuilt as a Baroque church with an oval nave, designed by Arcangelo Vici and his son Andrea, and Lotto's canvas was set on its high altar. In recent years, with the church hard to use, the painting has been shown in the town hall, in the Sala degli Stemmi that also houses the civic picture gallery.