Crucifixion with saints by Martino Piazza

Martino Piazza, Crucifixion with Saints (c. 1515‑1520), Oil on wood

Lombardy, Italy

Martino Piazza, working in Lodi near Milan, created this striking devotional panel around 1515‑20. The Crucifixion is set against a mountain landscape, recalling the influence Netherlandish painting exerted on Italian artists, especially in Lombardy. Christ on the cross dominates the centre, while the saints stand in devotion: Saint Ambrose and Saint Jerome on the left, and, from the Franciscan family, Saints Clare, Francis of Assisi, and Bernardino of Siena on the right. This picture was painted for a Franciscan convent, intended for devotional practices.

Piazza’s work retains the devotional clarity of earlier Franciscan imagery—haloes, gestures of blessing, and saints grouped around the Cross—but it also embraces Renaissance innovations: oil medium for richer colour, a realistic landscape setting, and more naturalistic modelling of drapery and flesh. The painting exemplifies a transitional moment: devotional art still rooted in Gospel witness, yet opening into a more human, spatially‑aware language of the Renaissance.