Die Ermordung des hl. Petrus von Verona

The Assassination of Saint Peter Martyr

This recently restored painting can now be fully appreciated as one of Bellini's greatest landscape compositions. It depicts the attack on two Dominican friars in a forest near Milan in 1252. While Saint Peter Martyr (left) was murdered, his companion managed to escape. The woodsmen felling trees in the background echo the violence of the assassins, but bright sunlight streaming through the trees suggests the saint's eternal life to come.

An artist in Bellini's workshop must have had access to this painting. The outlines of the four central figures are repeated in a painting on loan from The Courtauld Gallery, which hangs nearby.