23rd session of the Council of Trento in the Cathedral of Saint Vigilius

This is a faithful copy of the original painting kept at the Louvre. Given the exceptional importance of the topic, in 1963 Odette Pauvert-Tissier was retained by the Museo Diocesano Tridentino to paint a copy of it and since then it has been on display in the permanent section of the museum. The painting depicts a cutaway of the cathedral seen from the main entrance. In the background is the partition that separates the assembly’s space from the presbytery held up on three large arches, two of which occluded by the fittings used for the Council’s proceedings. The Holy Cross altar, at the centre of the partition, is marked by the famous group of the Crucifix with Our Lady and Saint John the Evangelist by the sculptor Sixtus Frei, nowadays kept in the chapel of the Crucifix. Flanking the pillars are the pulpit and four side altars that were later removed. At the far right, on the pulpit, appears the orator Francisco de Nogueras, the bishop of Alife; on the platform in front of the altar sit the papal legates with the four train-bearers in charge of holding up the trains of the robes of the highly placed ecclesiastical dignitaries. To the left sit two non-legate cardinals and the ambassador of Philip II of Spain, Count Luna.