Vittore Carpaccio
Dream of St. Ursula

The group of pilgrims has taken up quarters in Rome. In an expensively furnished chamber, Ursula is fast asleep on a tester bed. The crown at the foot of her bed identifies her as a princess.

There's time for us to take a good look around the room. On the wall behind the sleeping woman hangs a small devotional picture with a candle and a holy water pot. Beyond that, there's an open door with an antique statuette above the lintel. A pair of tubs stands in the windows, one with myrrh, the other with a clove plant – symbolising love and honour. On the right, there's a low bookcase with a stool and a small table in front of it on which several books, an hourglass and a quill can be seen.

It's early morning. As Ursula sleeps peacefully, an angel has entered the room from the right to announce her approaching martyrdom in a dream. And that is exactly what comes to pass. On their return journey, Ursula, Aetherius, the Pope and the eleven thousand virgins will pass through Cologne and fall into the hands of the Huns. The entire group of pilgrims will be pierced by arrows or slain – including Ursula, who refuses to surrender to the enemy commander's son and goes down in church history as a martyr.

Carpaccio created extremely detailed scenes for the cycle of paintings commissioned by the lay confraternity Scuola di Sant'Orsola on the life and death of their patron saint. And he drew inspiration from a wide variety of sources as he created his pictures: literature and the theatre, contemporary architectural drawings, seafaring, the culture of the court and everyday life in Venice. It allowed him to establish himself as a storyteller and chronicler of everyday life in the society of early modern Venice.