Along the right aisle, Tintoretto's 'Presentation of the Virgin' is one of his most important paintings. It was originally two canvases, separated down the center; the two sections formed the shutters over the organ. The story is told in apocryphal writings that Mary was taken to the temple by her parents at age three to be educated there. She climbed the fifteen steps, 'as though she was fully grown,' to meet and be blessed by the temple priest, who waits for her at the top. The Bible and other writings tell these stories of the Virgin and Christ, who understood their destinies when they were children, before anybody else did.
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