Immaculate conception, with St. John the Baptist and St. Francis of Assisi

Canvas by an unknown author. The iconography of the composition, organized on two levels: at the top, among the clouds it proposes the Immaculate Virgin, protected by the Blessing Eternal and surrounded by four angels with various cherubs who, in a symbolic gesture, crushes the head of the serpent- emblem of evil and sin- on the crescent moon - a metaphor of womanhood's fertile period. Below, in a rugged and rocky landscape, on the right there is St. John the Baptist pointing the Virgin to believers and on the left a worshipping St. Francis. The presence of the two saints suggests that this painting, probably originally made for the church of St. Francis in Alto of Ancona, was transferred in the 1700s to the nearby church of St. John the Baptist where the Franciscans had moved. When the parish, in the 1700s, passed from the Franciscans to the secular clergy, the church was closed for restoration, designed by Daretti, who reduced its surface. Finding no more room for it, the canvas was left in storehouse from which Monsignor Ragnini retrieved it and brought it to St. Joseph church. All this is presumed since the two saints, in the late Renaissance and Baroque period, were particularly venerated in that area of the city.