Coronation of the Virgin with St. Augustine and St. William of Aquitaine

This large canvas, dated 1616 and now in the Department of Paintings of the Louvre, depicts the Coronation of the Virgin with Saints Augustine and William of Aquitaine — the latter a twelfth-century crusader who renounced his military career to become a Benedictine monk. The inclusion of these two saints suggests a commission from an Augustinian or Benedictine community, for whom both figures held particular identity significance. Lanfranco was in his early Roman period in 1616, still refining the synthesis of Carracci training and Roman Baroque dynamism that would define his mature style. A Louvre canvas from this early date represents a significant surviving document of his formative work in the Roman ecclesiastical commission world, and the work's compositional ambition — celestial coronation combined with standing saint witnesses below — foreshadows the great ceiling and dome compositions of his maturity.

Oil on canvas, the large format required Lanfranco to manage the vertical division between an upper celestial zone, where the Trinity or Christ crowns the Virgin, and a lower terrestrial zone occupied by the named saints. His early handling already shows the flowing drapery and confident anatomy of Carracci training.