There are a lot of Venetian altarpieces in museums, and there were a lot of medieval ones broken up into component parts and sold off bit by bit. Both instances take the altarpiece out of the context that is was made for. This past week I finally made it into the church of San Zaccaria in Venice. I’d seen the outside before but had never dropped by when it was open. So I finally got to see Giovanni Bellini’s 1505 San Zaccaria altarpiece in its proper location with its original frame against the walls of the church. San Zaccaria was the most important nunnery in Venice in the renaissance, and they exercised a lot of discretion in their patronage of both art and architecture.