Il martirio di santa Giustina

There is a reason this old saint suddenly mattered in the 1570s. Justina was a young Christian woman of Padua, put to death in the 4th century, her cult a quiet local one for more than a thousand years. Then, on the 7th of October 1571, the fleets of Venice and its allies crushed the Ottoman navy at Lepanto, and the victory fell on Justina's feast day. Almost overnight she became a patron of the Republic's triumph, and Padua wanted a grand new altarpiece of her death. Veronese, helped by his brother, painted it for her basilica there, the sword at her breast and heaven opening above. A cardinal in Florence later acquired it, which is how it came to hang in the Uffizi.