Il Battesimo di Cristo

Veronese painted this Baptism in Venice in the late 1570s, but it spent its first century far from any grand gallery, in a confraternity oratory in Ancona, a port down the Adriatic coast. It was knocked about and damaged there more than once. Its luck changed in 1667, when Ferdinando II de' Medici, the Grand Duke of Tuscany and a keen collector of Venetian painting, bought it and brought it to Florence. He had it cleaned up by a local painter first, then gave it a place of honour. Veronese keeps the foreground almost bare so nothing distracts from the act itself. John pours the water, the dove of the Holy Spirit comes down directly above Christ's head, and a cluster of angels watches from the side. The colours are the warm silvers and rose Veronese was known for at home in Venice.