Chiesa di Sant’agostino

This early Renaissance church is a favourite of soon-to-be mums, who pop in to pay their respects to Jacopo Sansovino’s sculpture of the Virgin Mary, the Madonna del Parto (1521). The Madonna also features in Caravaggio’s Madonna dei Pellegrini (Madonna of the Pilgrims; 1604) in the Cappella Cavalletti. Although harmless to modern eyes, this painting caused uproar when it was unveiled in 1604, thanks to its depiction of Mary as barefoot and her two devoted pilgrims as filthy beggars. Painting almost a century before, Raphael provoked no such scandal with his fresco of Isaiah, visible on the third column in the nave.