This is an in-depth examination of Paolo Fiammingo as a ‘figure’ painter, starting from his arrival in Venice from his native Antwerp, probably at the beginning of the 1570s, and of his relationship with Tintoretto, his collaboration in the workshop of the Venetian master having been attested by Carlo Ridolfi (1648). A painting previously assigned to Tintoretto is given here to Fiammingo, with the aid of the transmitted light investigations made during his recent cleaning, and read in relation to the cycle on the life of St Roch in the Venetian church dedicated to this saint. The analysis is extended to some of the altarpieces by Fiammingo in which one can feel the influence and admiration for Tintoretto, even when the Northern artist established himself on the Venetian artistic scene as an independent master and before specializing in the genre of landscape, for which he would be best known.