Altarpiece of the Halberd [SEP] creator
Altarpiece of the Halberd
The Altarpiece of the Halberd is a painting from around 1539 by the Italian High Renaissance painter Lorenzo Lotto. It is housed in the Pinacoteca civica Francesco Podesti of Ancona, central Italy.
History.
The work was seen by the art biographer Giorgio Vasari in the church of Sant'Agostino in Ancona, where Lotto had fled in reply to the hostility received in Venice. It was later moved to the church of Santa Maria della Piazza and, after other locations, the current one. 
The painting
dates to a few years after the coup by which Ancona had been restored to the Papal States. The resistance had been brutally suppressed, many of the rebels having been beheaded by order of the papal legate. The upside-down halberd has been thus interpreted as a symbol of peace.
Description.
The monumental composition is taken directly from the tradition of Holy Conversations in the Venetian School, inaugurated by Antonello da Messina's San Cassiano Altarpiece. It shows the Madonna and Child on a high throne, with two angels