Sull’iconografia della Messa di san Gregorio di Girolamo Romanino

The subject depicted in the "lunetta" painted by Girolamo Romanino for the Corpus Domini chapel in the church of San Giovanni Evangelista in Brescia has always been somewhat uncertain. Various hypothesis have been assumed, but the predominant idea was that it depicted the so-called Mass of Saint Gregory, the apparition of Christ as the Man of Sorrows which the saint received while he was celebrating mass. Such identification is not satisfactory, because of the differences between what the legend described and what Romanino painted. This article suggest an alternative interpretation: that in Brescia is depicted another mass of Saint Gregory, the Mass of the doubting matron.