page_title: Pietà (Titian)
section_title: Description
hierarchical_section_title: Pietà (Titian) / Description
caption_attribution_description: Italiano: Gallerie dell'Accademia - MIBAC The making of this document was supported by Wikimedia CH. (Submit your project!) For all the files concerned, please see the category Supported by Wikimedia CH. العربية&#160;| বাংলা&#160;| čeština&#160;| Deutsch&#160;| English&#160;| Esperanto&#160;| español&#160;| français&#160;| magyar&#160;| italiano&#160;| македонски&#160;| Nederlands&#160;| rumantsch&#160;| sicilianu&#160;| українська&#160;| +/− This is a photo of a monument which is part of cultural heritage of Italy. This monument participates in the contest Wiki Loves Monuments Italia 2014. See authorisations. (wiki-ID: 0270422853-MIBAC) Further authorizations required by the Italian "Code of Cultural Heritage and Landscape" (Codice Urbani), under Legislative Decree No. 42, dated January 22, 2004, and its subsequent amendments, regarding the reuse of the picture.This image reproduces a property belonging to the Italian cultural heritage as entrusted to the Italian government. Such images are regulated by Articles 106 et seq. of the Italian Code of Cultural Heritage and Landscape under Legislative Decree No. 42, dated January 22, 2004, and its subsequent amendments. These regulations, unrelated to copyright regulations, establish a system for the protection of Italy’s historic and artistic heritage and its standards of dignity. Among other things, these regulations provide for the payment of a concession fee by those who intend to benefit economically from reproductions of property belonging to the Italian cultural heritage. Reproduction of this image is permitted for personal use or study. A further authorization by the Italian Ministry of Heritage and Culture is required for reproduction for any other purpose, and particularly for commercial use. Such commercial use includes, but is not limited to, use in (a) any form of advertising, and (b) any company name, logo, trademark, image, activity, or product.
context_page_description: The Pietà now in the Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice is one of the last paintings by the Italian master Titian, and in its final, extended, state was left incomplete at his death in 1576, to be completed by Palma Giovane. Titian had intended it to hang over his grave, and the two stages of painting were to make it fit in two different churches.
  The picture is among Titian's last, one of several left unfinished at his death. An inscription in the lower part of the picture records that it was finished by Palma Giovane, whose interventions seem to have been kept to the minimum necessary, and doing his best to match Titian's own style. A minimalist view of the areas he worked on is that it "was limited to the angel with the torch and to touching up the tympanum of the stone shrine", but the female statue and Jerome's cloak have also been suspected of showing his hand, and he may have touched up the architecture more generally.
  The painting is one of a group in Titian's distinctive late style, which begins fully about 1570, though continuing trends seen in earlier works as far back as the mid-1550s.
context_section_description: An original, much smaller, composition just showing the basic two figures of the standard Pietà subject in Christian art, which consists of Virgin Mary cradling the dead body of Christ, was expanded after being completed and delivered (see below).
  Behind the central figures there is now a large rusticated Mannerist aedicule or niche, flanked by statues standing on plinths carved with giant lion heads.  Along the top of the broken pediment six flaming lamps give a dull light, with another half-hidden in the centre, with vegetation around them, perhaps "the figleaves of the Fall of Man".  A patch of dark sky can be seen at top left.  Three massive keystone-like blocks in the centre drop below even the bottom of the pediment, a feature typical of the Mannerist architecture of Giulio Romano and his followers.  These three blocks have been said to represent the Holy Trinity, or "Christ as foundation of the faith".
  A figure who is either the Nicodemus of the gospels or, as usually thought today, Saint Jerome, approaches Christ on his knees, and reaches out to touch his hand. This is generally agreed to be a self-portrait of Titian. On the left, standing and completing a right-angled triangle of the human figures, is Mary Magdalene, who unlike the other figures seems to be in motion. Whether she has just arrived on the scene, or is rushing away in horror is unclear.
  The two statues at the sides of the grand niche in the background are Moses on the left and the Hellespontine Sibyl on the right, both identified by inscriptions on their pedestals.  The Sibyl was thought to have prophesied the coming of Christ and his crucifixion.  A putto-angel with a flaming torch illuminates the scene, which is dark and evidently set at night. In particular his torch reveals the gold mosaic in the semi-dome of the niche, where in the centre a pelican feeds its young by pecking its own breast to draw blood, a phenomenon believed since classical times in traditional zoology, which had become a common visual symbol of the Passion of Christ and its redemptive effects for man.
  In the bottom right corner a small ex voto picture is propped up against the base of the right-hand statue.  It shows two men kneeling in prayer to a Pietà in the air.  These are agreed to represent Titian and his son Orazio, probably praying to be spared from the plague that in fact killed them both, a full year after it arrived in Venice. Behind the picture, and partly concealed by it, is a small shield with Titian's coat of arms.  In the bottom left corner another young angel is picking up an urn, perhaps the Magdalene's attribute of a jar of ointment.
caption: The bottom right-hand corner
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