This volume accompanies the exhibition at the Palazzo Ducale in Mantua in which the altarpiece with The Descent from the Cross (1602-1603) by Peter Paul Rubens is presented to the public for the first time.
The exhibition, from 9 September to 11 December 2005, is devoted to the patronage of the famous Eleonora de’ Medici, duchess of Mantua, and to the religious painting in the Gonzaga family’s palazzo and especially in the upper chapel of Santa Croce that features work by the young Rubens. To facilitate the study of The Descent from the Cross it is accompanied by other youthful compositions including The Deposition in the Sepulchre (c. 1603), from the Galleria Borghese in Rome, The Martyrdom of Saint Ursula (1604-1605) and The Gonzaga Family in Adoration of the Trinity (1605), from the Museo di Palazzo Ducale in Mantua. The catalogue also includes works by Otto van Veen, Rubens’ teacher, Scipione Pulzone and Pietro Tacca, and, for the first time, sequence of illustrations of the surviving areas of the late Gothic palatine Church of Santa Croce.