La Leggenda di Santi Orsola

Description: About 1490 a young Venetian painter, Vittoro Carpaccio, completed a series of seven large, graceful, richly detailed canvasses depicting the legend of St Ursula. Each painting recorded another episode in the tragic destiny of the beautiful princess from Britanny who, a thousand years earlier, had accepted the hand of an English prince in marriage on the condition that he accompany her to Rome to be converted to her own religion. In a vision Ursula learned that her pilgrimage would end in brutal massacre, but her faith was stronger than her fear of death. (Commentary in Italian)