The Apotheosis of Saint Jerome with Saint Peter of Alcántara and Antonino da Patti

The Apotheosis of Saint Jerome with Saint Peter of Alcántara and Antonino da Patti, dated 1725 and now at the Scottish National Gallery, is an ambitious altarpiece-scale composition by Pittoni produced early in his career that established him as a capable painter of sacred subjects for institutional patrons. The apotheosis — the elevation of a saint to heaven — was one of the most theatrically demanding subjects in Catholic devotional painting, requiring the artist to balance earthly figures with heavenly apparitions in a convincing spatial continuum. Pittoni combined three distinct saints in this composition: the scholarly Jerome with his lion, the ascetic Franciscan Peter of Alcántara, and the less widely known Sicilian Antonino da Patti. The Edinburgh holding places this work in the Scottish national collection's strong representation of Italian Baroque and Rococo painting.

The apotheosis format required Pittoni to construct a convincing transition from the earthly to the heavenly zone, achieved through a gradual lightening of value and loosening of form as the eye moves upward from the earthly saints to the glorified Jerome above. Clouds and angelic figures mediate between the two zones, their forms increasingly vaporous and luminous toward the composition's upper reaches.