Assassination of Saint Peter Martyr

This painting depicts the violent murders of the Dominican monks Peter (on the left) and Dominic on the road to Milan in 1252. The forest behind symbolically echoes the monks’ brutal end — the cut-down trees bleed like they do.

The two monks and their assassins are copied from a painting, now in the National Gallery, London, by the leading Venetian painter Giovanni Bellini. The similarity means that the work here was likely painted by one of his studio assistants for a client who admired the original.