Allégorie de la bataille de Lépante

On 7 October 1571 a Christian fleet assembled by the Pope smashed the Ottoman navy in the Gulf of Patras, and Venice, which had helped lead the alliance, took the victory as its own. Veronese painted this soon after, and he splits the canvas in two. The lower half is the sea fight itself, ships jammed together in smoke and fire, masts crowding upward. The upper half leaves the battle entirely. There the Virgin sits in light while saints, among them Mark and Peter and Justina, present a figure of Venice to her and beg for victory, and an angel leans down to fling burning arrows at the Turkish galleys. Veronese is not really reporting the battle. He is making the Venetian claim that it was won in heaven first, the guns below answered by prayers above.