[6] An original, much smaller, composition just showing the basic two figures of the standard Pietà subject in Christian art, which consists of Virgin Mary cradling the dead body of Christ, was expanded after being completed and delivered (see below).

[7] Behind the central figures there is now a large rusticated Mannerist aedicule or niche, flanked by statues standing on plinths carved with giant lion heads.

Along the top of the broken pediment six flaming lamps give a dull light, with another half-hidden in the centre, with vegetation around them, perhaps "the fig leaves of the Fall of Man".

Three massive keystone-like blocks in the centre drop below even the bottom of the pediment, a feature typical of the Mannerist architecture of Giulio Romano and his followers.

In particular his torch reveals the gold mosaic in the semi-dome of the niche, where in the centre a pelican feeds its young by pecking its own breast to draw blood, a phenomenon believed since classical times in traditional zoology, which had become a common visual symbol of the Passion of Christ and its redemptive effects for man.

These are agreed to represent Titian and his son Orazio, probably praying to be spared from the plague that in fact killed them both,[17] a full year after it arrived in Venice.

[21] Around 1572 a series of quarrels with the local authorities there and his relations led him to change his mind and plan a burial in the large Franciscan church of the Frari in Venice, which contained two of his important early masterpieces, the Assunta on the main altar and the Pesaro Altarpiece on a side wall,[22] nearly opposite the intended site.

[24] In 1576 Titian died in the middle of a major epidemic of plague, followed a few days later by his son Orazio, and it was impossible to arrange for the transportation of the body to Cadore.

Indeed, she looks and gestures roughly in the direction of the Pesaro Altarpiece, further up the church on the other side, while the statues, both looking to the left at a sharper angle, have been seen as indicating the way to the Assunta on the high altar.

[30] For Tom Nichols, "Titian's dramatization of the conflicting emotions of those who witness Christ's death lends his painting its bleakly expressive power.

His focus effectively breaks up the usual formal unity expected of a pietà, isolating its protagonists from each other to undermine more abstract possibilities of aesthetic harmony or more resolved theological meaning.

"[33] Erwin Panofsky prefers to see it as "A lifelong rivalry, compounded of mutual respect as well as opposition, ended in a tribute paid by the survivor to his defunct antagonist — and doing honor to both".

Its true protagonist is the Magdalene, salient in a radiance of green against a gold-shot background, who walks out of the picture into the real world, shouting, palpable, magnificent, and one with us in life.