Focus on this artwork and analyze the History.
The altarpiece, intended for the parish center at the entrance of the Val Brembana valley, was commissioned from Lotto by the Scuolo del Corpo di Cristo, the patrons of the altar of the piece. It was not easy to commission works from Lotto at the time, while he was in Bergamo and his works in high demand. The artist, however, knew Giovanni Belli of the Catholic organization Congregazione della Misericordia Maggiore from signing a contract for an inlay work, Tarsie del coro di Santa Maria Maggiore di Bergamo. Belli had also been elected as a mayor in the parish of Ponteranica on April 15, 1520. Belli had known Lotto during the commission of the Bergamo inlays, and Lotto had given Belli's son Giuseppe a job in his workshop. All these connections aided the series' commission by Lotto.: 19  Giuseppe Belli would aid Lotto even in the realization of his later works.The commission itself was undocumented, but the preliminary carpentry works for the altarpiece's wooden structure began in 1518. In 1521, the cornice gilding was commissioned by Pietro de Maffeis di Zogno, who completed work for la Pasqua in the previous year. These details help confirm the dating of the polyptych series, with its slightly antiquated form for the time, owing to the explicit request of its patrons.: 56 The exact end date of Lotto's work is still unknown. A credible hypothesis is that the artist, finishing at Bergamo in 1526, entered contact with the Scuolo del Corpo di Cristo, perhaps by furnishing other panel paintings. The years following the realization of the series, Lotto was engaged in other citizens' commissions (like the Suardi Chapel in 1524) and the realization of the drawings for the Bergamo inlays and then left for Venice in 1527. Perhaps only in Venice, Lotto, inactive due to the hostility of the city's official culture, completed the work and shipped the last plans for the work.For a long time, it was thought that the upper part of the altarpiece was made after the rest of it, but there is no documentation to confirm that the altarpiece was ever missing an upper part, that would need to be replaced. The original engaged, architectural frame was lost at some point: 57  The replacement was made by Giacomo Manzoni from a design by Virginio Muzio in 1902. The dimensions slightly differed and this did not permit the paintings to perfectly connect, as in the original realization by Lotto. The central panel where Saint John the Baptist is depicted was surely lower, eliminating part of the stone on which the feet of the saint are placed—the background landscape does not match the paintings on the side.
Tarsie del coro di Santa Maria Maggiore di Bergamo Val Brembana John the Baptist Saint John the Baptist Congregazione della Misericordia Maggiore Suardi Chapel Corpo di Cristo Ponteranica official culture Virginio Muzio