Renaissance masterpieces coming to New Orleans museum

NEW ORLEANS — Two Renaissance masterpieces are coming to the New Orleans Museum of Art - only the third museum ever to display them together, and the second outside Italy.

Paolo Veronese (POW-loh veh-roh-NAY-zuh) painted “St. Jerome in the Wilderness” and “St. Agatha Visited in Prison by St. Peter” during 1566 and 1567 for a church on Murano, an island in the lagoon of Venice.

“Though known to scholars, the paintings’ remote location ... made them difficult to access and study,” a museum news release sent Monday said.

The pair of paintings had never been shown outside Italy from their creation until the two-city U.S. exhibition which is bringing them to New Orleans, it said.