This detail shows the portrait of a man of about 30 years of age. He looks directly at the viewer. It is the painter Vittore Carpaccio as he depicted himself in a painting. The detail is from a painting in the Ursula Cycle, which shows Ursula and her future husband meeting the Pope at the gates of Rome. The painter is standing in the Pope's entourage, surrounded by church dignitaries.

He has brown eyes, a straight nose and a small mouth with full lips. His face is framed by a light brown beard, which appears fine on his upper lip, and thick and strong on his cheeks. The curls of his chin-length light brown hair spill out from under a plain black cap. The artist wears a wrinkle-free black coat. A low white standing collar surrounds the artist's strong neck.

...this is what he may have looked like: the painter Vittore Carpaccio, who lived in Venice during the period around 1500. His paintings continue to shape our image of the city to this day.

Hello and welcome to the exhibition "Carpaccio, Bellini and the Early Renaissance in Venice". We'd like to take you back to a big, bustling city of the Early Modern Era, to a time when Venice was a proud, prosperous maritime republic with a glorious past. Venetian painters such as Vittore Carpaccio and Giovanni Bellini vividly illustrated the myth of Venice in their works.

Vittore Carpaccio, who takes centre stage at this exhibition, created colourful, detailed, fascinating visual worlds against realistic and imaginary backdrops drawn from Venice and landscapes of the Middle East. Ships, architecture, people and animals populate his paintings, making Carpaccio a chronicler of everyday life in Venice around 1500... as well as one of the most successful artists of the early Renaissance.

As you head to your right and into the first room of the exhibition, you'll immediately catch sight of one of his most important works: a monumental altarpiece with the Dominican Saint Thomas Aquinas enthroned in the centre. The panel is in the Staatsgalerie's collection and has been thoroughly researched and restored in preparation for this exhibition.

During your tour, you'll be able to listen to music from the time of Carpaccio and Bellini – offering an additional acoustic experience of early Renaissance Venice. The audio contributions are frequently accompanied by period music that was specially recorded for the exhibition in co-operation with "SWR Kultur" and the vocal ensemble "The Marian Consort" under its conductor Rory McCleery. 

Please join us as we travel to the Venice of 500 years ago and venture into the visual worlds created by Vittore Carpaccio, Giovanni Bellini and their contemporaries. You'll be amazed at the discoveries these paintings have to offer!

The altarpiece is more than two and a half metres high and almost two metres wide. The intense colours are applied to poplar wood. The painting has been in the possession of the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart since 1852.

The portrait format shows three men and a kneeling boy of about twelve under a cloudy sky with Mary and the Christ Child. 

The heavenly scene takes up the upper third of the picture, which ends in an arch at the top. Surrounded by a golden glow, the Virgin holds her naked son in her arms. He looks down, his right hand raised in blessing. Angels hover around them. Only their heads and wings emerge from the grey-blue clouds. Below them, four angels with larger wings stretch a narrow red cloth across the picture, which separates heaven from the earthly events in the lower part of the painting. 

The three men and the boy occupy this lower part. The group is in a room with two arched windows looking out onto a hilly landscape with a mountain range in the background. Between the windows, in the centre of the picture, one of the men is enthroned on a pedestal. He is wearing a white robe with a black cloak and a hooded cloak over it. The monk, St. Thomas Aquinas, sits behind a lectern on which lies a thick, open book. His left hand rests on it, while his right hand is raised. His extended forefinger points upwards to the sky. 

The knee-high pedestal has two doors. The left one is wide open, the right one, half closed, has a key in it. Another key hangs from it. Inside the pedestal is a pile of books. 

To the left of Thomas Aquinas is a man with a dark full beard, St. Mark. He is wearing a long red robe with many folds. A blue-green cloth is wrapped around his shoulders and hips. His bare feet are in sandals. The Saint is holding an open book and is looking intently at the man to his right. 

The man on the right, St. Louis of Toulouse, wears a mitre and a red and gold patterned mantle over a white robe with red trim that falls over his feet. He holds a crozier in his left hand and an open book in his right. The Bishop shows the printed pages to St. Mark. To the right of Louis of Toulouse, at the feet of Thomas Aquinas, kneels the boy in a blue fur-lined cloak. He is depicted in the manner of a founder's portrait, with his arms folded across his chest and looking up at St. Thomas Aquinas. 

On the floor, in the centre of the lower edge of the picture, there is a painted note with the artist's signature and the date in Latin.

Three saints engaged in conversation. On the far left stands Saint Mark – the patron saint of the city of Venice. In the centre, St Thomas Aquinas sits enthroned at a writing desk, with the son of the altarpiece's donor kneeling at his feet. And on the right is Saint Louis of Toulouse wearing the regalia of a bishop. 

You're probably wondering what these figures have in common. From a theological point of view, not very much. They lived at different times, so they could never have met. But they share the given names of an important Venetian family – the Dragans. Tommaso Dragan and his brother-in-law Marco were from a generation that had revolutionised glass-making. In the late 15th century, new manufacturing techniques and the importation of high-quality raw materials across long distances meant the local glassworks could now produce especially high-quality, pure white glass – a luxury product known as crystal glass, or simply crystal.

That's actually referenced on the page of the bible Louis is holding. It's from the Book of Revelation: 

"Then he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb."

However, when Carpaccio delivered the altarpiece as per his client's order, there was probably a minor upset. Take a look at the clouds moving in front of St Thomas's throne-cum-desk and forming a second level to the composition: The angels holding a length of red cloth and the two red putti heads appear to be later additions to the altarpiece... And indeed: a recent examination using infrared photography revealed an underdrawing. That infrared photograph is on display as the second image at this stop. Above the heads of Saint Mark and Saint Louis, you can see an architectural feature with an arch and round panes of glass, what's known as bull's-eye panes. That was the kind of glazing used in windows at the time.

Carpaccio had obviously misunderstood. The up-and-coming Dragan family hadn't made its fortune by producing commonplace bull's-eye panes, but by making gilded and enamelled crystal glass vessels! The Dragans were presumably outraged, rejected the painting and forced Carpaccio to hurry up and rework it.

The piece of music selected to accompany this altarpiece is by Alexander Demophon Venetus, and it addresses the Virgin Mary directly: "Volgi gli occhi, o madre pia" – "Turn your eyes, O pious mother". If you'd like to listen to the whole piece, you can access it on the second player.

The reproductions of the nine-part Ursula Cycle exhibited here are significantly smaller than the original works and depict them at only 60% of their actual size. Nevertheless, the reproduction of the first painting in the cycle is still almost 1.70 metres high and a good 3.50 metres wide. All the original works of the Ursula cycle are in the Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice. 

The huge landscape format shows the view into three adjacent rooms of a building that extends into the depths of the picture space. The centre room is twice as large as the rooms to the left and right. 

The space on the left is an arcade that runs from the foreground to the background. A canal can be seen on the left-hand edge of the picture between the columns and pillars lined up diagonally towards the back. A gondola floats on it. Some colourfully dressed men are standing under the arches in the corridor, some leaning against the railing between the pillars. Other men peer between the pillars into the centre room. 

Steps lead up to a throne on the right-hand wall of the loggia. Kneeling on them are four men who have respectfully removed their headgear. Three of them have half-length blond hair. The foremost is dressed in a gold-embroidered robe. He hands several sheets of paper to the dark-haired king on the throne. The king, named Maurus, is wearing a crown and sceptre. He is clad in a golden robe and is flanked on either side by two seated men. They are all wearing dark caps. 

The loggia is separated by a railing from a wide square in the background, which is populated by a large number of men. Some of them peer in over the railing. The square is bordered by a canal with two sailing ships, behind which rise magnificent townhouses and a large octagonal building with a domed roof. 

A wall separates the loggia from the raised room on the right. At the foot of a staircase, at the bottom right of the picture, sits an old woman with a stick - it is Ursula's nurse. She is wearing a black dress, a shawl and a white bonnet. She is gazing into the distance. The steps end in the raised room, Ursula's bedroom. 

King Maurus sits there next to a bed with a canopy, his head resting in his hand. In front of him stands his daughter Ursula in a blue dress. A broad red cloth lies over her like a sash. Her long blonde hair is gathered in a plait at the back of her head. Ursula looks at her father and taps the fingers on her left hand with her right index finger, as if she were enumerating something. On the wall behind them hangs a picture of the Madonna in a golden frame.

"There was once [...] a devout king, [...] Maurus by name, who had a daughter, called Ursula. She lived such a virtuous life, was so wise and so beautiful, that her name took wing across the lands. Then there was the king of England, [...] and the fame of this maiden came before him, so that he said: he would be blessed above all things if he could give the maiden in marriage to his only son."

That's how the story of Saint Ursula's martyrdom begins. What you see unfolding here is the next scene. The King of England's envoys have arrived at court. Clad in silver and gold embroidered damask robes, they kneel before King Maurus and present a letter in which their master asks for the hand of Princess Ursula. Maurus accepts the letter, while four advisors observe the scene with some scepticism.

Carpaccio stages this ceremony in keeping with the conventions of the Venetian doge's court. That's not accidental – it's an assertive statement. The earliest diplomatic contacts had developed during the 15th century, with the Venetians setting up the first seats for their ambassadors in other countries. The wealthy mercantile city of Venice was one of the first city states to maintain diplomatic relations – including alliances by marriage.

Would you like to know what the fair Ursula decided? Take a look at the right-hand section of the painting. It shows a concerned -looking Maurus presenting the marriage proposal to his daughter. He's worried because the king of England and his son have not yet converted to Christianity. But Ursula has already made up her mind. She tells her father what her conditions are, counting them on her fingers. Her wise old nurse sits outside the chamber, gazing gloomily into the future.

The reproduction measures over 3.50 metres in width. And is almost 1.70 metres high. 

The reproduction shows the action in three scenes in the foreground, as in a theatre play. The detailed background is a bay, bordered on the left by a mountain with castles and on the right by a cityscape. More than a hundred people populate the castles and town, and several ships and boats are moored in the bay. 

On the left in the foreground, men in colourful robes crowd together on a narrow promontory. At their head, the blond, long-haired Prince Aetherius kneels before his father. Both are wearing blue tunics with red hems and capes. The son holds his headdress in his left hand, the right one he has given his father as a farewell. Aetherius looks up at him. 

A flagpole separates this scene from the action on the right. It rises into a light blue sky with scattered large white-grey clouds. The base of the pole is made of marble. Carpaccio's signature is attached to it. To the right of the pedestal stands Aetherius in a full boat. He is now wearing tight-fitting leggings with a short black and white patterned jacket. The prince holds out his hand to Ursula as a sign of their engagement. She stands at the end of a gangplank and gathers her long red dress with black and white sleeves with her other hand. Behind Ursula stands a woman in a pink dress and green cloak. A white veil covers her hair. The woman looks over her shoulder at the footbridge behind her.

Her gaze leads the viewer to the third scene on the far right, in which the betrothed couple, Aetherius and Ursula, kneel on a footbridge in front of King Maurus to take their leave. The prince is dressed in a flowing red robe, Ursula in a gold-interwoven dress with blue sleeves. She has reached out her hand to her father. He has leant forward and is stroking his daughter's loose hair with his free hand. Behind him stands Ursula's mother Daria, the queen. She is wearing a short-sleeved blue dress with a silver-coloured cross on one sleeve and a white veil covering her hair. She is wiping her right cheek with a white cloth.

Fair Ursula and the English prince Aetherius meet here for the first time. On the left-hand side of the picture, blond, curly-haired Aetherius bids farewell to his father, kneeling before him and taking his hand. On the far left in the foreground, there's a group of men watching the scene. The man on the right of that group looks directly at us, while his neighbour points at the farewell scene.

On the right of the flagpole, the story continues: Aetherius and Ursula meet and reverently shake hands. They're now betrothed. However, devout Ursula has laid down sweeping conditions. Aetherius is to convert to Christianity. And the couple are to set off on a pilgrimage to Rome with a retinue of eleven thousand virgins.

So Ursula must take her leave. On the far right, the betrothed couple kneel before Ursula's father, while her mother wipes away tears. In the background, people are queuing to be ferried out to the waiting ships. The engaged couple appear once again on the jetty.

The nine paintings in the Saint Ursula Cycle were commissioned by the lay confraternity Scuola di Sant'Orsola for their assembly hall in Venice. We're showing a scaled down reconstruction of the original hanging of the scenes here in our exhibition spaces.

Carpaccio was a little over twenty when he received this major commission from the lay brothers on the 16th of November 1488. He completed the last of the nine paintings in 1500. They were among the first works Carpaccio signed with his own name, and he did so in a very special way. On each of the paintings, you'll discover a very realistically rendered piece of paper, hanging or lying around somewhere as if by accident. It's what's known as a cartellino, and it bears a Latin signature and the date. In this scene, it reads: VICTORIS CARPATIO VENETI OPUS 1495.

Have you spotted the cartellino yet?

The original painting has an almost square format with side lengths of almost three metres. The sides of the reproduction shown here are each around 1.60 metres long. 

The picture shows a room with Ursula sleeping in a bed. A barefoot blond angel stands near the foot of the bed, at the bottom right of the picture. Bright light streams into the very high room through a doorway behind him. It makes the folds of his floor-length robe appear in various shades of blue. The large brown wings extend upwards over his shoulders. The angel is holding a long palm branch. His gaze is directed towards Ursula, at the bottom left of the picture.

The princess is lying on her back in the wide bed under a white sheet that is draped over a red blanket. She has placed her right hand on her cheek. Her head is resting on a white pillow. The crown is placed at the foot of the bed, on a bench. The bed has four narrow high posts supporting a red canopy. This runs parallel to the upper edge of the picture. In front of the bed, blue shoes and a curled-up cat with grey-brown fur lie on a carpet. 

There is a second door at the back left of the room. It is open. To the right of it are two arched windows. The sky behind them appears blue. There are green plants in ceramic pots in the window recesses. The room is also furnished with a bookshelf, a square wooden table with a book and pen, a stool, a chair next to the bed and a devotional picture.

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.

This small portrait format measuring around 35 x 22 centimetres is painted in tempera on wood. It comes from the Museo Civico Correr in Venice. 

The portrait depicts a man in his thirties. His head and shoulders fill almost the entire picture space. The man's narrow face is turned slightly to the right from a frontal view. His blue eyes look down at the viewer from under his bushy brown brows. He has a straight nose with a long bridge. The small mouth with narrow lips is closed. The rosy cheeks are clean-shaven, the chin has a small dimple. Shoulder-length, frizzy chestnut-brown hair frames the face. The man wears a small red beret on his head. The soft fabric headgear resembles a cap in shape. 

The man is wearing a matt blue outer garment with a low black stand-up collar. This is decorated with a green palmette pattern. A narrow strip of his white shirt peeps out above the collar. A red coat, also with a stand-up collar, lies over his narrow, sloping shoulders. Two round, flat silver buttons are fastened to each end of the coat collar. A golden cord is threaded through the buttons on the left. 

The background is a wooded coastline with a few buildings. The trees along the shore are reflected in the surface of the water. On the horizon, mountain ranges rise one behind the other. The sky, which appears white-grey above the mountain peaks, darkens to a mid-blue at the upper edge of the picture.

What might he be thinking as he subjects us to scrutiny, this gentleman with his lop-sided beret? His thin lips are tightly compressed, and he's holding himself very upright. The man in this portrait is from a good family, a member of the Venetian upper class. You can tell, not only by his confident demeanour, but also by his dress: the bright red mantle and the blue doublet over a white shirt.

But who was this man? Despite the distinctive facial features, that knowledge has been lost. He seems to be standing in front of an atmospheric landscape, but even that doesn't give us a clue to his identity.

That's a pity, because the painter has rendered his sitter's facial expression and personality with great care. Previously, members of the upper classes had largely been portrayed as representatives of their rank and role in society, but that changed shortly before the year 1500. Some painters – including Vittorio Carpaccio – set out to discover their subjects' characters and individuality. They painted extremely vivid portraits. And indeed: there's a sense that the unknown gentleman with his red beret might speak to us any moment now – he's so lifelike.

Feel free to take a look around the room at the other subjects of the portraits in here. Some look quite static, while others appear lively and distinctive. And Carpaccio and his fellow painters even portrayed some of them with a knowing, almost humorous look.

The portrait is painted with oil on wood and measures around 60 x 50 centimetres. It is on loan from the Szépművészeti Múzeum in Budapest. 

The Queen of Cyprus is depicted here against a black background. She is depicted from the top of her head to her waist, so that her body fills almost the entire picture surface. When this picture was painted, Caterina Cornaro was 46 years old. 

The queen turns her head to the right in three-quarter profile. Her almond-shaped brown eyes are set under very narrow brows. Her gaze appears determined. She has a straight nose, a small mouth and round cheeks. Pearl earrings adorn her earlobes. Her straight brown hair is parted in the centre and disappears for the most part under a tight-fitting bonnet embroidered in gold with pearls. A crown with small spikes sits on the bonnet. The low crown band is decorated with pearls and various coloured gemstones. A transparent veil covers the cheeks and neck, with a narrow bar holding it in place on the forehead. Small weights with pearls are attached to its ends. 

Caterina Cornaro wears a wide-cut bronze-coloured brocade dress with long sleeves. A row of pearls runs along the neckline. The dress is laced under the bust. A ribbon of pearls runs around her neck and crosses over her décolleté. Its ends are connected to the row of pearls along the neckline. A small, massive necklace with a pointed pendant and a large pearl hangs around the neck of the dignified-looking woman. 

In the top left-hand corner of the picture, in a small dark red rectangle, there is a Latin inscription in gold letters. The enumeration of Caterina Cornaro's origin, name and title is followed by the sentences: "Cyprus serves me. You can see how important I am, but even greater is the hand of Gentile Bellini, who depicted me on such a small panel."

Caterina Cornaro was one of the most important women in the history of Venice.

As the daughter of a rich and respected patrician family, she was married off to the King of Cyprus at the age of 14. It was a shrewd move. For Venice, as a trading power looking to expand its influence in the eastern Mediterranean, the island of Cyprus was important. 

Four years after the wedding, which the groom had not attended in person, Caterina finally left Venice and moved to Cyprus. But less than eight months after her arrival, her husband died... and the Maritime Republic of Venice rejoiced. It forced Caterina –Queen of Cyprus – to abdicate and itself took over the administration of this strategically important island.

Caterina was compensated with a prestigious estate in the small town of Asolo near Venice. The disempowered queen lived there surrounded by scholars and artists and organised festivals with plays and tournaments.

Gentile Bellini's portrait of Caterina Cornaro dates from that period. Gentile, who was Giovanni Bellini's older brother, depicts Caterina as a very dignified individual against a background of deepest black. She's looking to one side, making no contact with us and displaying no hint of emotion. She appears as if trapped by the severity of her portrait.

Caterina Cornaro had – albeit involuntarily – helped her home city of Venice to gain control of Cyprus and set the seal on its supremacy in the eastern Mediterranean. She was deployed as a bargaining chip in a game of economic and military power. As to her individuality and personality – well, they didn't particularly matter to the portrait painter.

The piece of music you're hearing is called "Non si vedra gia mai" ("You will never see") – and is a reference to Caterina's court in Asolo. The composer, Antonio Caprioli, took passages from what's known as the "Asolani" – reflections on love set at Caterina Cornaro's court – and set them to music.

The artist painted the small portrait format with oil and tempera on wood. It measures 40 x 30 centimetres and comes from the collection of the Denver Art Museum in the USA. 

The painting shows a middle-aged woman in front of a rust-coloured curtain. Her right hand holds a closed book. 

The portrait of the woman takes up almost the entire picture surface. With an attentive gaze, she turns to the left in three-quarter profile. Her face is oval, with narrow brows above her brown, slightly protruding eyes. She has a large nose with wide nostrils, a small mouth with narrow lips and a slight double chin. Her cheeks are rosy. Her dark blonde hair is parted in the centre and partly covered with a hairnet. Individual chin-length wavy strands fall down at the temples. The ochre-coloured hairnet is decorated with white pearls arranged in a flower-like pattern. 

The sitter is wearing a dark brocade dress with a trapeze neckline lined with a gold border and pearls. Around her neck is a simple gold chain. 

The clasp on the book, bottom right in the picture, is also golden. This type of metal construction on the long sides of the front and back covers was used to close a book, among other things. The cut of the book is also gilded. These are the three sides on which a book can be opened. In addition, a silver-coloured curved pattern adorns the dark cover. It runs around the book cover like a frame.

At around the same time as Gentile Bellini was working on his portrait of Caterina Cornaro, Queen of Cyprus, Carpaccio painted this wealthy patrician lady.

Take a moment to compare the two female portraits: like Caterina Cornaro, Carpaccio's sitter is shown in three-quarter view, slightly turned away from the viewer. Her priceless brocade gown is trimmed with gold braid and a row of pearls. She's wearing a beaded cap, from which a few strands of her parted hair have been allowed to escape. Beneath a high forehead, her brown eyes gaze into the distance. The bridge of her nose is prominent, she has a small mouth, and her lips appear narrow above a slight double chin. Carpaccio's portrait shows a confident woman with a distinctive look.

That impression is further highlighted by the book this woman is holding. Even without knowing what the volume is about, we identify it as a sign of education. The book's gilt edging and precious clasp are echoed in the gold trim of the sitter's sumptuous gown. The filigree pattern of the book's gleaming silver cover matches the delicacy of the slightly wavy strands of hair and the rounded decorative seams of her neckline.

Small-scale portraits were very popular with the Venetian patriciate and the middle classes. Carpaccio picked up on this trend, but varied his portraits by personalising them. He'd include his sitters' hands in the picture. He'd give them attributes – like the book – and use these elements to elicit their individual characters.

This picture is painted with oil on canvas. It consists of the main picture, which is over two metres high and almost two metres wide, and four small rectangular scenes at the bottom of the painting.

The main picture shows St George fighting the dragon in the centre in front of a mountainous landscape.

The saint gallops up from the right on his brown horse. He is sitting in a red saddle with golden studs, the red reins are taut. George is wearing shining silver armour and a sword with a golden hilt hanging from his hip in a red scabbard. His head with its long blond curls is unprotected and surrounded by a narrow halo.

Georg holds a lance in his right hand, which he uses to pierce the dragon's open maw. The greenish mythical creature has an elongated mouth full of sharp teeth, short muscular limbs with long claws and small wings. The dragon stands on its hind legs, its strong neck bent backwards. Blood drips from its mouth and flows from the wound on the back of its head over its back onto the ground.

A human foot with lower leg, an upper body with head and human and animal skulls lie scattered on the sparsely overgrown ground.

In the centre of the right-hand edge of the picture, a praying woman kneels at a safe distance next to a leafy tree and observes the battle scene. The young woman is the king's daughter who was to be sacrificed to the dragon.

At the top right of the picture is a walled town with towers. To the left, on a hill, sheep crowd in front of a hut. A man in a red cloak is kneeling in front of the city gates. It is St Stephen, surrounded by people holding stones in their raised hands.

Two hermits are depicted between jagged rocks in the top left-hand corner of the picture. One is lying on the ground between half-height plants, the other is leaning against a moss-covered stone next to a cave entrance, reading.

The four small rectangular scenes along the lower edge of the picture show four martyrdoms of St George. According to tradition, like many Christian saints, he was tortured in order to persuade him to turn away from Christianity. The depictions are separated from the main picture and from each other by a painted stone frame. The first scene, for example, shows St George tied to a pillar. Two men wearing turbans are tearing wounds into his body with metal rods. In the neighbouring scene, George is being tortured in a cauldron with a fire burning underneath.

It's the crucial moment! Saint George heads straight towards the dragon and pierces the monster's throat with his lance. The danger to the city of Silena and its residents has passed, the Christian knight has triumphed. The remains of the dragon's earlier victims – humans and sheep alike – are still scattered across the ground. In the background on the right, huddled next to a tree and praying for a favourable outcome, is the princess, who was next in line to be sacrificed to the dragon.

Behind her, outside the gates of a substantial city, another legend from the Christian story of salvation is playing out. Clad in a red cloak, Saint Stephen is kneeling on the ground, about to be stoned to death. 

And on the left, two hermits have withdrawn into the towering rocky landscape: Saint Jerome and Saint Benedict of Nursia. It was an obvious reference, since Carpaccio was painting this monumental scene for the monastery of San Giorgio Maggiore, which followed the Rule of Saint Benedict.

Saint George is also the protagonist in the four small scenes at the bottom. They show the ordeals the saint underwent before he was finally beheaded in the year 303 – at least according to Christian legends.

As to how realistic the story of the heroic dragon-slayer actually is – who's to say. But the battle against evil continues to inspire artists to this day. Please turn around and look at the opposite wall – or at your screen. This is the contemporary Chinese artist Ai Weiwei recreating Carpaccio's battle against the dragon – unmistakably, and yet hard to make out. Ai Weiwei mounted Lego bricks on aluminium and used this technique to, as it were, "pixelate" Carpaccio's masterpiece. Centuries-old fine brushwork meets contemporary digital aesthetics – but the main message remains the same: the importance of the battle of good against evil.

This woodcut is a black and white illustration on laid paper. The sheet comes from the graphic collection of the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart and measures approximately 30 x 21 centimetres. It shows a view through a round arch into a room. Numerous women have gathered near a bed in which an exhausted woman is resting. An angel hovers above the scene. He is waving a censer. 

The bed is slightly to the right of the centre of the picture. It has a canopy and curtains. The ends of the open curtains are looped around the bedposts. Anna, Mary's mother, is leaning against a pillow at the head of the bed. Her weak hands lie in her lap on the blanket. Anna looks in front of her. One of the women standing at the head of the bed hands her a plate. 

Another woman is sitting at the foot of the bed. Her upper body lies on the mattress, her head resting on her arm. She appears to be asleep. 

At the bottom right of the picture, a woman is squatting in front of a wooden tub on the end of a bench. She is holding a baby - the newborn Mary - on her knees. Little Mary is wrapped in a cloth and stretches her right arm upwards. The woman looks at her face. 

Two women in laced dresses and voluminous bonnets sit at a table next to her. One hands the other a cup. There is a basket on the table with a knife next to it. A young woman stands in front of the table with her head bowed and her eyes downcast. She is holding a pot. One of the women in a bonnet scrutinises her. 

At the bottom left of the picture, a woman sits on the floor supporting a standing toddler under her armpit. To the right of the two, an older woman is drinking from a jug. A third woman has taken a seat on a chair close to the three of them. She has her arms folded under her chest and is smiling. 

Various objects are placed on a ledge and a chest on the left wall of the room, including a candlestick with a burnt-out candle, a pair of scissors and a book.

The angel hovers above everything with outstretched wings in a sea of clouds. He occupies almost the entire upper third of the depiction. Wisps of smoke from the censer spread out below him to the left and right.

"It would not be possible, whether in invention, in the composition of the perspective views, in the buildings, in the costumes, or in the heads of old and young, to do better."

The verdict of Giorgio Vasari, the famous Italian artists' biographer. In this instance, he was writing about a leading northern European artist, who travelled across the Alps and visited Venice in the autumn of 1505: Albrecht Dürer.

Before his departure for Italy, Dürer had already published 17 of the 19 woodcuts he would later bring together for his cycle "Life of the Virgin". In a series of eventful scenes, the cycle depicts the life of Mary: from the hopes and expectations of her parents at her birth, her development and her betrothal to Joseph, via the Annunciation, the birth of Jesus, the flight to Egypt, all the way to her son's departure and Mary's own death and coronation.

Among Italian artists, the plates of the Marian cycle met with great interest, and reprints of the woodcuts were soon in circulation. Take a moment to examine Dürer's "Birth of the Virgin": In the foreground, a number of women have gathered to be present at the event that has just taken place in the background. Anne is lying in a large four-poster bed, exhausted from the rigours of childbirth. In the foreground on the right, a woman is bathing the new-born infant in a wooden tub. Towards the top of the print, the sky has opened up to reveal an angel swinging a thurible with incense.

Vasari had praised the invention, the perspective view and the faces full of character regardless of age – and those features are all in evidence here. Dürer`s pictorial invention exerted a formative influence on Venetian artists in general and on the slightly older Carpaccio in particular.

As you look at the other works from Dürer's "Life of the Virgin", you may like to listen to a piece of music by Josquin Desprez. As one of the most famous and imaginative composers of the Renaissance, Desprez was active at various courts in Italy and France. This is his motet "O bone et dulcis Domine Jesu" – "O good and sweet Lord Jesus".

The painting has an almost square format and is painted with oil on canvas. Its sides measure just under 130 centimetres. It is on loan from the Fondazione Accademia Carrara in Bergamo, Italy.

It depicts the birth of Mary in a room with a beamed ceiling and a spacious bed recess. 

Four women, a man and the baby form the foreground. Joachim, the father of the child, is shown in profile on the left-hand edge of the picture. He has a long grey beard and is wearing a reddish-brown tunic over a yellow robe and a brown cap with white trim. He is leaning on a stick with both hands. A little way in front of him is a shallow tub on a tiled floor with a chessboard-like pattern. A wet nurse sits to the right of the tub. The older woman is wearing a light brown veil that falls over her shoulders and chest. The newborn Mary lies on the nurse's knees. A white cloth covers the baby's stomach and hips. Mary's head is surrounded by a delicate, light-coloured halo. 

At the bottom right of the picture, a woman is sitting on a carpet spread over a low wall. She is wrapping a white bandage. The young woman is wearing a gold-coloured undergarment with a sleeveless blue dress over it. The dress has a small V-neck at the back of the neck. The woman's hair is hidden under a light-coloured scarf wrapped like a turban. She is gazing wide-eyed at the newborn. 

The high bed recess is on the right-hand side of the picture. The heavy red curtains are open. Anna, the mother, is lying on her side in bed under a white sheet that is draped over a red blanket. She has her head in her right hand. Over several robes, she is wearing a blue cloak with gold trim at the hem. It lies over her shoulders. Anna is also wearing a tight-fitting bonnet. She looks thoughtfully in the direction of the woman on the little wall. A servant in a red robe stands at the head of the bed. She is holding a shallow bowl and a spoon. On the wall behind her is a high ledge with vessels and a candlestick. Above it hangs a wooden panel with Hebrew characters. A small dark green curtain above it is drawn to the right. 

In the middle ground of the left half of the picture, views from the room lend the depiction spatial depth. On the far left, a window is cut through which a hilly landscape with a deciduous tree can be seen. Through an open door next to it, the view falls into the kitchen and other rooms behind it. A pot hangs over a fire in the kitchen. A woman dries a white cloth in front of the flames. Two rabbits sit on the floor in front of the doorway.

Vittore Carpaccio is considered a "master storyteller", one of the best of his day. And in this painting, he showcases that mastery. The painting shows the birth of Mary, later to become the Virgin Mary, in an affluent household. A wet nurse is getting ready to bathe the child in a shallow wooden tub, while a maidservant attends to Anne, who has just given birth. Right at the front, a woman has taken a seat on a low wall to wind a bandage. And in the rooms at the rear, two more servants can be seen going about household tasks. Only Joachim, the sole man in the picture, is idle. He's leaning on his stick and gazing pensively at the scene.

Carpaccio painted this picture as the prologue to a six-part series for the Scuola degli Albanesi, where Venice's Albanian community used to meet. He's set the scene in a wealthy Venetian household which he embellishes with numerous, seemingly incidental details. Take a moment to let your eye wander. You'll see a typical wooden beam ceiling, opulent wall decorations, vases and pots on a ledge and, last but not least, a panel inscribed with Hebrew characters on the wall.

Immediately before Carpaccio created his "Birth of the Virgin", a kind of primer of the Hebrew language had been published in Venice. The inscription, which is accurately reproduced, is from that book. However, Carpaccio wasn't interested in portraying the real life appearance of a Jewish household in Venice. Instead, he used the inscribed panel to link different time periods, setting the legend of Mary's birth (which actually took place in pre-Christian times) within a contemporary interior. It's unlikely his contemporaries were able to decipher the panel, but it highlights the historical divide – regardless of the topicality and the references to everyday life.

Before you move on, take another look at the seated female figure in the foreground on the right. You'll be seeing her again in the next room.

This landscape format is painted with oil on wood. It is just over 70 centimetres high and over a metre wide. The painting is on loan from the National Gallery of Art in Washington. 

In the foreground, Mary is depicted with the infant Jesus, riding on a donkey. The preceding Joseph is leading the animal by a rope to the right. The family is travelling through a hilly landscape with rivers. In the background, a barge can be seen on the water, rowing past a farmstead. The lush green meadows along the rivers are in bloom. Above the peaks on the horizon, the sky and clouds are bathed in the orange-coloured light of dawn, which looks like a firelight on a wooded hilltop on the right. 

A path bordered by small round stones runs along the lower edge of the picture. The donkey with mother and child are walking along it. Joseph is walking beside the path in ankle-high green. A halo hovers above Mary, the infant Jesus and Joseph. The group of figures occupies almost the entire width of the horizontal format. 

Maria, on the left of the picture, is sitting on the side of the brown-grey animal. She is wearing a red, gold-fringed dress, over which is a wide cloak of golden-blue brocade embroidered with plant motifs and cornucopias. The cloak covers her hair and conceals her body so that the contours of her arms and legs are barely visible. Mary looks pensively at her son. 

He is standing facing his mother on her thigh. She is supporting the approximately 2-year-old Jesus with her hands clasped behind her back. The child is dressed in a white linen robe. He is touching his mother's chin with his left hand and the index finger of his right is touching his own lower lip. The boy's gaze is directed at the onlookers. 

The advancing Joseph, on the right of the picture, holds the lead rope in his right hand and a chest-high walking stick in his left. He is wearing a knee-length blue long-sleeved robe with gold hems and a red coat knotted at the neck. His feet are in ankle-high black shoes. Joseph has light grey hair and a thick grey beard. He looks back at the donkey as he walks.

“Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt." 

The story according to the Gospel of Matthew ... In Carpaccio's painting, day is just dawning. Joseph, Mary, the baby Jesus and the donkey must have been on the road for hours. They're passing through a rolling landscape criss-crossed by rivers with boats on them. It's not unlike the countryside around Venice.

Carpaccio relies on that recognition effect. All the merchants who travelled to and from Venice over land or by water would probably have recognised the lagoon landscape. So he not only alludes to the everyday lives of his viewers, enhancing his work's appeal; he also shifts the biblical narrative into his own time. If the rescue of the infant Christ could have taken place literally on the doorstep, that makes it relevant to his contemporaries.

The priceless cloth of gold from which Mary's cloak is made may well be a reference to Carpaccio's home city. After all, many Venetian families had grown rich in the textile trade – specifically the trade in sumptuous fabrics.

We don't know who commissioned the painting, or where it originally hung. It was probably usedin a home for private devotions – perhaps by a wealthy merchant family.

The artist painted this painting, which is around 80 centimetres high and almost 50 centimetres wide, with oil on wood. The panel is owned by the Banca Popolare in Vicenza, Italy. 

The crucified Jesus is depicted in front of a hilly landscape with a cityscape.

The longitudinal bar of the even light brown cross divides the painting into two halves. It stretches from the lower to almost the upper edge of the picture. At the upper end of the longitudinal bar is a small plaque that reads "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews" in Greek, Hebrew and Latin. 

The crossbeam runs very high up in the picture. The feet of the crucified man are roughly in the centre of the picture. A white cloth is wrapped around his loins. The ribs protrude from the slender upper body. The head is tilted slightly to the right, the eyes are closed. The lower half of his face is in shadow. Jesus has shoulder-length wavy hair and a short full beard. His head is surrounded by a wreath of thorns, above which shines a golden halo. 

The wounds around the nails in the hands and feet are relatively small, the few traces of blood appear pale red. The wound in the right chest area is also rather inconspicuous. 

Five human skulls lie side by side on the stony ground at the foot of the cross on the right. On the left, a lizard crawls over a rock in front of a gravestone with a Hebrew inscription. In the dark green-grey landscape behind it, further gravestones stand between bare trees. A small white dove sits on a branch in the centre of the left edge of the picture. Three laurel shoots grow up from a slender trunk running parallel to the left edge of the picture. Their greenery extends across the upper quarter of the left half of the picture. On the horizon, embedded in the hilly landscape, there is a farmstead with a mill and a town made of light-coloured stone, with towers and roofs of different colours, rising into the blue, slightly cloudy sky.

Christ on the cross – one of the key subjects in Christian art. But how does Giovanni Bellini configure this topos of art history?

He places the monumental cross right on the edge of the painting, practically encroaching on the viewer's space. And the massive wooden cross extends across the entire height of the panel, blocking access to the picture space, as it were. 

While Carpaccio is keen to take viewers on a journey through the narrative of his paintings, Giovanni Bellini bases his work on a completely different concept. His composition doesn't invite viewers to explore a half-imaginary, half-realistic space – it invites them to meditate. The neatly arranged skulls lying on the rocky ground at the foot of the cross allude to transience and to Adam's original sin, which, according to the Christian faith, was expunged by Christ's sacrificial death. Behind the cross, there are a few leafless trees; but only a single branch, on the far left of the picture, has formed a new crown – a symbolic reference to the replacement of the Old Covenant (in other words Judaism) by the emergence of Christianity. 

In the background, on the left of the cross, there are two distinctive buildings from the city of Vicenza: the cathedral and the Torre Bissara, one of the city's tallest towers, built by the Bissari family. The complex also includes the cathedral of Ancona and what is presumably the bell tower of Santa Fosca in Venice.

Although the landscape and the city in the background are quite realistic, the painting doesn't lend itself to a narrative approach. Giovanni Bellini shows us the death on the cross, and we're meant to reflect on it as we look at the painting. He gives us no guidance on how to view his work, but rather invites us to engage in religious meditation on the act of salvation portrayed in the painting.

This painting from the collection of the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart is around 150 centimetres high and 170 centimetres wide. The landscape format is painted with oil on canvas. 

The picture shows a group of men in the foreground, some of whom are holding fist-sized stones in their hands. A few are aiming at a kneeling man with a halo. In the background, a town rises up on the left next to a mountainous landscape bathed in evening light. 

Stephen, the man with the halo, kneels in front of the wooded mountains at the centre right of the picture. With his hands raised, he looks up into the sky towards an apparition. This is depicted as a golden-orange surface surrounded by grey clouds in the top right-hand corner of the picture. Stephen has shoulder-length wavy light brown hair. He is wearing a richly decorated tunic interwoven with red and gold over a white undergarment. The golden crosses on the tunic and a red stole with a golden cross over his left wrist identify him as a Christian deacon. 

A number of men with turbans, belted robes and boots stand around Stephen. They are picking up stones or have raised them to throw. A man, who can only be seen from behind, is standing on a hill in the centre, pointing to Stephen with his arm outstretched to the right. At his back, in the lower left corner of the picture, are men with long beards and three soldiers. They are wearing breastplates and carrying long swords or halberds. One of the soldiers is wearing different coloured tight leggings with different patterns. 

Near him, at the bottom left of the picture, a man in long red trousers and a black doublet is sitting on the ground. He is also wearing a turban on his head. This is Saul, who will later become St Paul after his conversion. Saul - like Stephen - is looking up into the sky at the golden-orange apparition. 

At the top left of the picture, the closely spaced houses of the town cover a hilltop. Towers rise into the blue sky above. The town is surrounded in a ring by a high wall. From an archway on the left, people stream out of the town on a path. Some are riding horses. Others have stopped and are looking in the direction of the men gathered around Stephen.

"Now when they heard these things they were enraged, and they ground their teeth at him. But he, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, [...] And he said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened [...] But they cried out with a loud voice and [...] cast him out of the city and stoned him."

The Acts of the Apostles, describing the death of the first Christian martyr. Stephen had been elected as a deacon – that is, a pastor – in the early church in Jerusalem. He was later summoned before the Sanhedrin, the High Council, accused of blasphemy and executed.

Carpaccio sets the scene outside the gates of Jerusalem. The city is visible on the left of the picture. On the right, Stephen kneels and gazes devoutly up at the opening heavens. But the first men have already snatched up some stones and are about to hurl them at the deacon.

And as they were stoning Stephen, he called out, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” And falling to his knees he cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.”

So who are these men? Carpaccio has given them a wide variety of different characteristics. The men in the white turbans are wearing Ottoman dress. Others have long, white beards and lengths of cloth wrapped around their heads – they're the scribes mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles. Still others are wearing patterned hose, marking them out as mercenaries from northern Europe.

Once again, Carpaccio turns his back on the historical setting of the bible story in order to update the events he is portraying and bring them into the present. Some of Stephen the Martyr's enemies are the same as those who were threatening the Republic of Venice during his lifetime.

He painted this panel for the Scuola di Santo Stefano – a Venetian lay brotherhood whose members were involved in caring for the poor, among other things. The work is drawn from a five-part cycle that tells the life of Saint Stephen, the brotherhood's patron saint, with the events seemingly compressed into a brief period of time. Check your media guide to see the four surviving works in the cycle. As you look at them, pay particular attention to the light. The young deacon's ordination takes place in bright morning light; the sermon is held at midday, and the disputation before the High Council happens in the afternoon. But the final stoning is bathed in a red glow as evening closes in. 

While you're looking at the various scenes featuring Saint Stephen, you may like to listen to a piece of music by Adrian Willaert. As one of the leading composers of his day, he spent decades working as music director at Saint Mark's Basilica in Venice. He dedicated this motet to the saint: "Beatus Stephanus" – "Blessed St Stephen".

This portrait format was initially painted on wood using mixed media and later transferred to silk. It measures almost 70 centimetres in height and 55 centimetres in width. The painting was borrowed from the Städel Museum in Frankfurt am Main for this exhibition. 

The small panel shows Mary praying, Jesus, who is about six years old, and John, who is a little older, in a room with a window-like opening. A parapet runs along the lower edge of the picture. 

Mary is standing in front of a blue curtain on the right of the picture. She is depicted from head to hip. Her gaze is directed downwards. She has placed her palms together in prayer in front of her chest. Mary is wearing a dark brown dress with bronze-coloured wide sleeves. It is tied with a cord under the chest. Her hair is covered with a transparent veil, which also covers part of her forehead. She has wrapped a long white scarf around her head and neck. A dark blue cloak is draped over the parapet to her left. 

To her right, almost in the centre of the picture, is John. He has reddish-brown hair and is wearing an olive-coloured robe. He is holding a small cross in his left hand and pointing to a book in the hands of the Christ Child with his right.

Little Jesus is sitting with his legs stretched out on a green cushion on the left of the parapet in front of the window-like opening. He is wearing a long-sleeved white shirt, a brown tunic, a red silver-embroidered cap and red laced shoes. There is a necklace around his neck and a bracelet around his right wrist. Both are made of brown beads. He is holding the small, open book on his knees. 

Through the opening behind the boy Jesus, we see a green landscape with sheep in a pasture. A hill with trees is overlooked by the spires of a town behind it. The milky white-pink sky on the horizon fades into a pale blue towards the top. 

Carpaccio's signature is written in white letters on the front of the dark brown balustrade.

The Christ child, a slightly older John the Baptist and Mary have withdrawn to pray. Jesus is sitting on a window breast that separates the exterior space from the interior, making him into the mediator between the world outside and the private devotional space. 

He's wearing a shirt, a tunic, a red cap, a string of beads and dainty little red shoes – a typical outfit for Venetian infants in the early 16th century. But while his mother has already bowed her head and clasped her hands in prayer, the two boys aren't yet ready for the tranquillity of devotion. The Christ child is rather awkwardly turning the pages of a psalter. John raises his right hand to point at the book, which draws a look from the Christ Child. Neither is yet copying the Virgin's pious gesture, and silent prayer will have to wait.

We don't know who commissioned this lifelike scene from Carpaccio. But it probably adorned a woman's room and was intended for private devotions. The thinking prevalent in Venice during the time around 1500 held that women ought to stay in their rooms, where they were to instruct their children in matters of religion. So this scene may have served as an example to be imitated... with the two inattentive boys adding a degree of realism.

A similar scene by Carpaccio's hand has survived as a sketch. It's the second picture at this stop. There, both the Virgin and the Christ child are sitting on a window breast or in a window opening. Mary has opened a book and is looking across the pages at her son. He's perched on a cushion and appears to be listening attentively to his mother – finally!

This painting was first painted on wood and then transferred to canvas. The portrait format is almost 80 centimetres high and around 50 centimetres wide. It comes from the National Gallery of Art in Washington. 

The picture shows Mary sitting on a balcony parapet and looking into an open book. 

The balcony juts into the picture from the right and takes up almost the lower half of the painting. A blue cloak and a green-edged cloth with a golden-red pattern are draped over the white brick parapet that runs along the lower edge of the picture. Mary is sitting on it at the side. She is wearing a red dress with wide orange-coloured sleeves. The round neckline is framed by a wide silver border. A few short, wavy blonde strands of hair emerge from under the turban-like light brown scarf wrapped around her head. A transparent veil falls over the back of her head and neck down to her shoulders. A narrow, shiny golden halo surrounds Mary's head. 

She gazes intently at the pages of the small booklet in her hands. It has a red cover and a red ribbon marker hanging from it. 

The shoulder and toes of the infant Jesus, who is sitting and leaning against a cushion, and a tiny part of his halo can be seen on the balcony parapet on the left-hand edge of the picture. 

Behind the balcony is a meadow lined with bushes and shrubs, on which two trees stand. The tree on the left is almost bare, the one on the right is leafy. On the horizon is a coastal landscape with several hills in shades of green and blue. The hills slope gently from right to left towards the smooth surface of the water. To the right on the shore are a few buildings and a slender tower, which stand out brightly against a dark green hill.

At the top left of the picture, above the water surface, there are white and grey clouds. To the right, the sky clears.

Mary is reading a book, giving it all her attention and completely focused on the text. We're looking at her diagonally from the rear as she sits on a parapet. 

Unlike in traditional portrayals of the Virgin Mary, she's not wearing a red robe with a blue mantle, but a light red and orange dress with an elaborate border, reflecting Venetian fashion in around 1500. On her head, she sports a turban-like scarf and a translucent veil. The landscape behind her features a large body of water and a view of a city.

Originally, this was a larger painting, which included the baby Jesus; his left arm and foot can still be seen on the far left. However, the child was lost when the picture was later trimmed and reduced in size. 

What remained was Mary engaged in reading, an impressive, monumental figure. It is not unusual for the Virgin to be portrayed with a book in her hand. In the Roman Catholic Church, one of her devotional titles is "sedes sapientiae" – seat of divine wisdom. So the book is a common attribute. However, the fact that she's actively and intently reading this book is quite original.

So Carpaccio is showing Mary not just as a major figure of religious devotion. He dresses her in the fashion of the day, has her sit within a landscape reminiscent of Veneto, and elevates her as a role model of female education and a culture of reading – an identification figure.

In fact, women are unusually prominent in Carpaccio's paintings. Their demeanour is more self-confident than in the works of other Venetian painters of the period. By choosing the world of women – confined as they are to devotional reading – as the subject of his paintings, Carpaccio may have been addressing women specifically in his works... as viewers and perhaps even as patrons.

The portrait format is just under 80 centimetres high and almost 50 centimetres wide. It is painted with oil on poplar wood. The devotional painting is owned by the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart. 

Mary is depicted sitting behind a low parapet. She is holding her naked son, who is standing on it. 

Mother and child form the centre of the painting. Mary is wearing a pleated blue cloak, underneath a purple iridescent robe with tight-fitting sleeves. Over her head and hair is a white cloth with a gold border, which is twisted in front of her chest. Mary has tilted her head slightly to her left and is looking directly at the onlookers. She has fine facial features, brown eyes, a small nose with a straight, long bridge and a small mouth. 

The infant Jesus stands diagonally in front of Mary on the brown-grained balustrade. His head is level with the crook of her neck. Mary's right hand is resting on her son's chest. He grasps her thumb with his right hand and feels the back of her hand with his left. The child's gaze is directed downwards and his head is tilted slightly forwards. Reddish-blonde curls frame the round face with rosy cheeks. 

In her left hand, behind the child, Mary is holding a golden pear between her thumb, forefinger and middle finger. The stem of the fruit is pointing upwards. The golden shimmer of the pear makes parts of her palm and fingers also appear golden. 

Three quarters of the background is covered by a bright red curtain with a fine gold border. On the left edge of the picture, it reveals a view of a city with towers and domed roofs behind a wall with battlements. The city is embedded in a wooded hilly landscape. The sky above the hilltops is white and turns blue towards the upper edge of the picture. 

The painter has applied his signature in gold letters to the centre of the parapet at the bottom edge of the picture. The dark background reads: Ioannes Bellinus.

Mary looks at us with a serious expression on her face. She knows her child will die on the cross and redeem humanity through his death. As a symbol of original sin, she is holding ... not an apple, but a pear … in her left hand. Her right hand is clasped about her son, who may still be unsteady on his feet. This emblematic scene takes place in front of a bright red curtain, behind which we can see the city of Vicenza – one of Venice's neighbouring cities.

Giovanni Bellini and the painters in his workshop were famous for their portrayals of the Madonna. They painted her in countless works – each with slightly different minor details. Bellini and his assistants arranged individual elements into ever new compositions, avoiding the temptation to mass-produce a single successful subject.

For example: compare this Madonna and Child with the one known as the "Rogers Madonna ", the second picture at this stop. Both paintings are from Bellini's workshop. There's a resemblance – and yet they're quite different when you get down to the detail. The pear, the blue mantle, the landscape in the background, the naked boy... can you identify any other features that are similar, yet different?

The landscape-format picture is painted with oil on wood. It measures 55 centimetres in height and almost 90 centimetres in width. It comes from the Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte in Naples. 

Mary is sitting in front of a curtain with her son on her lap. Next to her are a monk with a knife in his head and a small boy. A mountainous landscape stretches out behind them. 

Mary and the infant Jesus are in the right-hand third of the painting. A green and orange curtain forms the background. The Mother of God is wearing a blue cloak with a golden yellow lining over a red dress. A white veil with a gold-coloured ornamental border covers her hair. She has tilted her head forwards and is looking at her son. The naked Jesus is sitting on her left thigh. Mary clasps his breast with her left hand. The child has raised his right hand in blessing and is holding up his index and middle fingers. A golden halo runs around his head. 

Mary's outstretched right hand lies on the head of the little boy standing in front of her. It is John. He is depicted in the centre of the lower edge of the picture from his head to below his chest. John has placed the fingertips of both hands on his chest and is looking up devotedly at the Christ Child. 

Behind him stands St Peter Martyr, also known as St Peter of Verona. He has a gaunt face, brown eyes, a strong nose and large ears. St Peter is wearing a white robe with a black cloak and hooded cloak over it. This clothing identifies him as a monk of the Dominican order. The monk has tilted his head with his short black hair and tonsure towards Mary. He looks enraptured. The blade of a cleaver is stuck horizontally in the top of his head, a dagger in his chest. There are pale red traces of blood on his ear and in the chest area of his white robe. Peter is holding a palm branch in his left hand as a sign of a martyr. 

The expansive landscape behind Petrus consists of a mountain range on the horizon, in front of which a river meanders between wooded hills. On its banks, high villas, towers, a horseman and a shepherd with his flock can be seen behind a small bridge. 

Cloud veils darken the sky in the upper left corner of the picture and cast shadows on the landscape below. To the right, the sky clears. Mary and the infant Jesus appear in bright light. 

At the bottom right, on a piece of the parapet that can be seen between Mary's cloak and her dress, the artist has signed the painting in gold.

The Christ child is sitting on his mother's lap, raising his hand in a gesture of blessing. Facing him are Saint Peter Martyr and Saint John the Baptist, both worshipping the child.

This devotional painting is by Lorenzo Lotto, who was younger than Giovanni Bellini by roughly 45 years. Yet in his painting, he borrows a subject originally developed in Bellini's workshop. Take a look at the two images provided for comparison next to it or in your media guide, which are attributed to Vincenzo Catena and Fra Marco Pensaben. All three devotional paintings depict Mary in characteristic pose: with head bowed and left hand holding the child, she stretches her right arm way out in front. But the purpose of her gesture is different: in the painting by Lorenzo Lotto, she is blessing Saint John with that hand. Originally, there was probably a donor in the place now occupied by the Baptist. In the paintings by Vincenzo Catena and Fra Marco Pensaben, however, the Madonna's hand rests on a book.

One and the same motif in different works. The obvious parallels provide an insight into the way the Bellini workshop operated – as one of the largest painting workshops in early modern Europe. They also give an insight into the way a popular subject was repeatedly copied and modified. More than twenty works can be traced back to this original!

The scene is painted with a thin brush in tempera on wood and almost looks like a drawing. The horizontal panel measures 74 centimetres in height and is almost 1.20 metres wide. It comes from the Gallerie degli Uffizi in Florence. 

The depiction in shades of grey shows Mary, the dead Jesus and John, surrounded by five other people against a neutral, yellow-brown background. The figures are very vivid and lively thanks to fine hatching and stippling. 

The dead Jesus is leaning with his back against his mother, who is sitting diagonally behind him on the left. Her left hand grasps his shoulder, her right hand rests on the ground. Cloths are wrapped around Mary's head, forehead and neck. A wide veil lies over them. Mary looks at her son with half-closed eyes. 

John sits to the right of the dead man with his knees bent. With his right hand he supports Jesus' back, with his left he holds the crucified man's forearm. A stigmata can be seen on the back of Jesus' limply hanging hand. John's gaze is fixed on it. John has long curly hair, which the artist has worked out in great detail, and a beard. He is wearing a loose robe with a belt. 

Jesus, between Mary and John, has shoulder-length wavy hair and a short full beard. His eyes are closed, his facial features relaxed. His head is tilted back slightly. A light-coloured cloth is wrapped around his loins. 

Two women and three men have gathered around Mary, Jesus and John in the centre. Mary Magdalene stands in the foreground on the left. Her long hair falls over her chest. She is wearing a hairband around her head and a wrinkled robe. She looks in front of her, stunned, her mouth slightly open. Behind her, between her and Mary, kneels a man with a turban and a full beard. It is Nicodemus. He looks at Mary Magdalene with a worried expression and a furrowed brow. 

The woman to the right of Nicodemus, Mary Cleophae, is wearing a headscarf. She is gazing into the distance beyond the events in front of her. Her head is drawn with pale strokes and only partially coloured. To her right is another man: Joseph of Arimathea. He has light hair and a thick beard. His brows are drawn together as he follows Mary Cleophae's gaze. His head is also not worked out in as much detail as the figures in the central group. 

Finally, an older man with a long white beard in a monk's habit is depicted on the right-hand edge of the picture, who cannot be identified by researchers. He sits behind John and looks grimly at the dead Jesus from under bushy eyebrows.

Is it a preliminary drawing? A template for workshop assistants? A finished work?

For a long time, researchers couldn't agree on the exact nature of this panel. It appears to be the work of Giovanni Bellini himself. The delicate hatching and stippling, which lend the figures and their garments remarkable plasticity, demonstrate the precision of a master.

Whether the panel was a work of art in itself, an underdrawing or a collection of ideas – the same structure is also present in several other Lamentation scenes from Bellini's workshop. If you turn around to face the opposite wall, you'll see a Lamentation that is also by Bellini and his collaborators and has a very similar composition – albeit in colour.

Christ, who has been taken down from the cross, is being supported by Mary, John and other faithful followers. John, the favourite disciple, shows us Jesus's pierced hand, and his look seems to be appealing to us personally. The other figures are gripped by wordless grief.

The painting arrived at the Württemberg court in 1852 along with many other masterpieces. It was one of 250 paintings in the Barbini-Breganze collection acquired in Venice by Wilhelm the First.

Those masterpieces still form a major part of the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart's collection even now. And the research and restoration of some of the works gave rise to this exhibition.

We hope you've enjoyed your encounter with Venetian early Renaissance painting, and your exploration of the worlds of Vittore Carpaccio with their blend of the realistic and the imaginary. We look forward to welcoming you again soon. But for now, we'll just say "thank you" … and goodbye.

You've been listening to a guided tour by Linon Medien in cooperation with the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart.