Our Lady with benedictory child Jesus known as the ‘Madonna del coro’

The revered image was commissioned by Johannes Hinderbach following his nomination as prince bishop of Trento, occurred on 30 August 1465, while he was in Rome on a diplomatic mission. After his solemn entrance into the city on 21 September 1466, the prelate donated the painting to the cathedral of Trento and subsequently was named ‘Our Lady of the Choir’ due to its location within the church.
It is one of the many copies of the so-called ‘Our Lady of the People’, the allegedly miraculous icon kept in the Roman basilica by the same name and painted, according to ancient tradition, by Saint Luke the Evangelist. The icon depicts the traditional Byzantine model of the ‘Virgin Hodegetria’, from the Biblical Greek Oδηγήτρια, “She who points the Way”, namely Christ.