Retablo de Castello Roganzuolo

In 1543 the leading families of Castello Roganzuolo, a small hill town north of Venice, did something ambitious for a village their size. They commissioned Titian, already the most sought-after painter in Europe, to make the altarpiece for their parish church of Saints Peter and Paul. He gave them the Madonna and Child flanked by the two saints, and it was set on the high altar in 1549. The panel stayed there for centuries. During the First World War, when Austrian troops occupied the area, the parish priest hid it in the church attic. He was arrested and questioned but never gave it up, and the painting survived. Today the original hangs in a diocesan museum nearby, with a copy left in its old place above the altar.