Vierge du Rosaire

Lorenzo Lotto signed this altarpiece in 1539 for the Confraternity of the Rosary in Cingoli, a hill town in the Marche where he was working late in a restless career. The Virgin sits above with the Christ child while Saint Dominic receives the rosary, and beside him the town's patron, Saint Esuperanzio, holds out a small, careful scale model of Cingoli itself. Behind them Lotto grows a rose trellis studded with 15 medallions, one for each of the mysteries of the rosary the confraternity was devoted to. He set it all against an almost night-time sky. The painting was made for the church of San Domenico, and today, with that church unusable, it hangs in the town hall a few streets away.