Introduction / The Early Years
Lotto in Bergamo / Lotto's Carpets
Pictures for Private Devotion
Lotto's Patrons
Return to Venice
The Later Years

Lotto in Bergamo and the Santo Spirito Altarpiece

In 1513, Lotto left central Italy to take up residence in Bergamo, the westernmost city in the Venetian mainland territories. His successful completion of a major altarpiece there led to a stream of commissions from local aristocrats and wealthy merchants. Their patronage enabled him to develop his powers as a portraitist and his inventiveness as a painter of devotional images for worship at home. Judging from the splendor and exuberance of the pictures that Lotto painted in Bergamo, the thirteen years he spent in the city were the happiest and most productive of his career.

One of Lotto's finest altarpieces from this period, painted for the church of Santo Spirito, is exhibited on the opposite wall. Bathed in early morning light, saints from different eras are joined in spiritual communion in an open-air setting symbolizing Paradise. The balanced composition pays homage to the High Renaissance master Raphael, who died the year before Lotto completed this work. Lotto's own sensibility shines through in such strangely beautiful details as the green cloth wrapped around the feet of Saint Anthony Abbot, at right, or the oddly impish John the Baptist, who nearly strangles the sacrficial lamb with affection. The garland of little angels (angelini, in Italian) may be a visual pun on the name of the local merchant who commissioned the altarpiece, Balsarino Angelini.

Lotto's Carpets

Lotto is the only Renaissance artist known to have possessed a large Turkish carpet. He rendered oriental rugs so well that a Turkish carpet pattern has been named for him. The painting in this room of the Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine reveals Lotto's precise understanding of rug manufacture: at left, the edge of the carpet is turned back to reveal the dense rows of fine knots that give the rug its thick pile. The interlaced border design derives from the angular Arabic script called Kufic; actual examples of this "pseudo-Kufic" border appear in two of the rugs exhibited here. Lotto's Santo Spirito altarpiece and Portrait of a Married Couple include carpets with a keyhole-shaped motif projecting into the main field, a motif that also occurs in the actual prayer rugs in the exhibition.

Wealthy Italians had imported carpets from the Middle East since at least 1300. Artists included them in their paintings as floor coverings denoting an honored space for the Madonna and saints. From the second half of the fifteenth century, when the demand for luxurious domestic furnishings greatly increased, carpets were usually considered too precious for the floor. Except in paintings of holy figures, they appear draped over tables, benches, and chests. The carpets that Lotto portrayed may have belonged to churches, friends, or local merchants, but one of the examples seen in his paintings may have been his own.

List of all objects in this room