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This painting, the first work Lotto painted for the basilica of Loreto, is one of the several altarpieces that he executed in the Marches in the 1530s. It depicts an unusually dramatic group of saints, in which a colossal St Christopher dwarfs his two companions. The three represented saints have intimate connections with the cult of the Madonna of Loreto, one of whose principal roles was as a protector against the plague, and with the shrine of the Holy House as a goal for pilgrims in search of a miraculous cure from disease.
There is a curious motif in the central foreground: a paper scroll, inscribed with an eye and the painter's signature (Laurentii Loti pictoris opus), wrapped round a snake. The snake is a symbol of evil, while the eye alludes to the all-seeing eye of God. In combination, the motif signifies the power of God over evil, and perhaps over the evil of plague, in particular. Thus the motif is connected with the curative and prophylactic powers of the represented saints.
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