An Allegory of Faith

The present work is a new addition to the corpus of Paris Bordone. The painting served as an ex voto commemorating a noble priest, Bernardo dei Gastaldi, who was forty-four years and ten months old on November 9, 1555. Gastaldi's coat of arms is suspended from the broken column, a common metaphor in funerary symbolism for the extinction of an aristocratic line. Gastaldi's profession is furthermore suggested by the allegorical female figure emblematic of Faith, who responds to a call from Heaven. The palm signifies Christian victory over death, presumably a reference to Gastaldi's own death.