The Virgin assumed in a glory of angels; at the top the Eternal Father; at the bottom Saints Thomas and Jerome

The grandiose altar-piece, originally placed in the first chapel on the left in thechurch of San Bartolomeo, is the first certain work (the artist’s signature is on the scroll at centre bottom) of Giovanni Speranza de’Vajenti and probably dates back to 1500.

In the centre, under the figure of the Eternal Father, appears the Virgin assumed into heaven, surrounded by a festive flight of angel musicians and cherubs, playing numerous instruments. Their vivacity is emphasised by the intense sunny light that floods the whole scene, making the colours bright and vivid, almost metallic. At the bottom, absorbed in contemplation of the sacred event, are Saint Jerome and another saint currently identified, after much dispute, as Saint Thomas, thanks to the detail of the belt that he is holding in his hands (according to the apocryphal gospels and the Golden Legend by Jacobus da Varagine, when the Virgin was assumed into heaven she left Thomas her belt as a tangible sign of her bodily assumption, so that he might believe). Behind them is a dry and sunny urban scene, with a great variety of buildings, temples, fortifications, domes, bell-towers, that may perhaps allude to the city of Jerusalem.

It is a work in which the artist, at the age of about thirty, takes up the teachings of his master Bartolomeo Montagna, but updates them thanks to the numerous suggestions drawn from other contemporaries at work in Veneto and Emilia.

The painting, which is now in a poor state of conservation, is accompanied by an equally poorly preserved predella with large parts of bare wood, in which the apostles appear on their knees in foreshortened poses.