The Virgin Intercedes with Her Son for the End of the Plague – Domenico Tintoretto

The painting is rigidly divided into two levels and executed in a popular, simple style, like a kind of ex-voto. The little prayer contained in the explanatory cartouche is perhaps all that remains of Domenico's literary production: « I pray you, pray your Son that he may heal this cruel wound that devours us and that, through his lofty mercy, he may aid us; his anger appeased, may our sufferings cease ». On the upper level, the scene takes place in Paradise. On the lower level, in the Hell of mortals. Behind a beautiful jewel-adorned lady wearing a crown (Venice) and two female donors, one sees a scene of everyday life during the epidemic: two attendants carrying a corpse out of a plague-stricken house. On the fondamenta lies an unburied dead woman. To the left, another monatto drags a stretcher. On the wall one reads the sinister number: 1631.