This article studies both the iconography and technical aspects of Bernardo Zenale’s Enthroned Virgin and Child with Saints Joseph, Ambrose and Jerome of 1510 in the Denver Art Museum. One of the most famous of Milanese painters and architects, and in Lombardy at large, Zenale (Treviglio, Bergamo, documented from 1477 – Milan 1526) executed his altarpiece for the chapel of Santa Maria della Vittoria in the church of San Francesco Grande, Milan, located opposite the chapel housing Leonardo’s London version of the Virgin of the Rocks. Produced during his maturity, Zenale’s altarpiece is rooted in the Lombard tradition, technically and otherwise, and reveals his dialogue with Leonardo, their two paintings depicting subjects related to the theme of the Immaculate Conception.

Examining essential details hitherto overlooked by earlier scholars, the contribution focuses on the rocky landscape where the scene is set, on the spring of water at the Virgin’s feet that runs beneath Saint Ambrose, on the paintings on the cave’s walls.

Alterations and underdrawing revealed by previously unpublished IRR images are discussed and explored within the framework of Zenale’s corpus as a whole, clarifying the development of his underdrawing against the author’s own study of some twenty of the artist’s panels. By systematically comparing several of his paintings, including those in the Pinacoteca di Brera, we can follow Zenale’s preferences as well as his artistic hesitancy, so that works previously doubted as his can be better discussed or restored to his oeuvre.