The Pietà or Christ's Body Supported by the Virgin Mary and St John the Evangelist is a tempera-on-panel painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Giovanni Bellini, now in the Accademia Carrara in Bergamo.
The crossed arms are drawn from a famous Roman mosaic-icon from Santa Croce in Gerusalemme basilica which was held to be miraculous and had according to legend been commissioned by pope Gregory the Great based on a vision during a mass.
Above each figure is his or her name in gold Greek letters, further proof of the painting's origins in Venice.
Their extreme expressions of grief are unusual in Bellini's oeuvre and may have been influenced by Donatello's reliefs for the high altar of the Basilica of Saint Anthony of Padua.
The interlocked gestures were possibly inspired by the followers of Francesco Squarcione, known as the Squarcioneschi, particularly Carlo Crivelli – the influence is so marked that the work was later misattributed to the first Ferrarese School by Arslan.