History
One of the artist's last Madonnas, the painting was commissioned by Pope Julius II in 1512 in honor of his late uncle, Pope Sixtus IV, as an altarpiece for the Benedictine basilica of the Monastery of San Sisto in Piacenza, a church with which the Rovere family had a long-standing relationship. It was their requirement that the image contain both Saint Sixtus and Saint Barbara. Legend has it that when Antonio da Correggio first laid eyes on the piece, he was inspired to cry, "And I also, I am a painter!"
Read more about this topic: Sistine Madonna
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“What you don’t understand is that it is possible to be an atheist, it is possible not to know if God exists or why He should, and yet to believe that man does not live in a state of nature but in history, and that history as we know it now began with Christ, it was founded by Him on the Gospels.”
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