La discesa dello Spirito Santo

Titian painted this Pentecost for the Venetian church of Santo Spirito in Isola, and the commission gave him trouble. His first version began to deteriorate not long after he delivered it, the paint failing because of how the canvas had been prepared, and he had to make it over again. This is the replacement, from around 1545, when he was Venice's leading painter and his colour had grown deeper and more shadowed than in his bright early years. The scene is the moment the Holy Spirit came down on the apostles and the Virgin as tongues of fire, the light pouring from a dove at the top. When Santo Spirito's altarpieces were dispersed, this one moved to Santa Maria della Salute, the great plague church on the Grand Canal, where it hangs today.