Francis” he’d bought: 50 years on, it still ranked as one of the great portrayals of the holy man. The collector added it to walls hung with other paintings that could hardly have had less to do with the sacred: Neighboring the “St. Francis” was a Giorgione that illustrated the classical tale of Paris, the Trojan prince, being abandoned in the wilderness as a babe. Contarini used this room to compare the latest in people-pictures — even if one of these people was the son of God. As the art historian Charles Hope has pointed out, it’s possible to spot Sebastiano’s stylings on the surface we see today.

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Persons: Francis ” he’d, Contarini, Francis ”, Bellini, Bellini’s, God, Giorgione’s, Mary, Abraham, Pythagoras, Giorgione, Giorgione’s couldn’t, Marcantonio Michiel, ”, Giorgione —, Sebastiano del Piombo, Charles Hope Organizations: Frick Locations: “, Paris, Turkish