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Venice ran on committees, and three of the men kneeling here were its treasurers, the camerlenghi, magistrates who managed the Republic's money for a fixed term of office. When their term ended they commissioned Tintoretto to paint them at their devotions before the Madonna and Child, with their family coats of arms set on the step below. It was a Venetian custom to leave such a picture behind in the government palace as a record of the office you had held. The date on it reads 1566, the year the three were appointed, but under a microscope an earlier 1567 shows through, closer to when the work was actually finished. The saints standing with them are Mark, Venice's own patron, along with Sebastian and Theodore.