Mary enthroned with the child and six saints

Mary Enthroned with the Child and Six Saints, at the Gemäldegalerie Berlin, is a sacra conversazione by Alvise Vivarini painted around 1490 that shows the full development of the polyptych format into the unified spatial composition pioneered by Giovanni Bellini. The six saints surrounding the enthroned Virgin create a devotional assembly whose specific identities were chosen to reflect the patronage or liturgical context for which the altarpiece was made. Berlin's collection of Venetian painting extends from the earlier Vivarini tradition through the full arc of the Venetian Renaissance.

The architectural setting that unifies the Madonna and six saints is rendered with careful perspective, the throne and surrounding space creating the effect of a single coherent space rather than the compartmentalized individual panels of an earlier polyptych tradition. Alvise uses the warm, atmospheric light of oil painting to knit together the varied figures and their diverse costumes within a single luminous environment.