Dispute among the Doctors

Originally the painting was thought to represent the Four Fathers of the Church but the lack of attributes makes this difficult to sustain. Pietro della Vecchia painted a good number of figure groups such as this, with small or larger groups of men engaged in conversation or argument. Some of these were of religious themes, others philosophical or related to learning, others of chiromancers or charlatans, and others still seem to have formed parts of sets of the Four Ages of Man and thus depicted Old Age.

Pietro della Vecchia’s style was formed upon a blend of his Venetian Cinquecento heritage and his experience of Caravaggio in Rome. The faces of the disputants relate to types of character heads of old men found throughout his oeuvre.

The painting is signed in Greek letters and dated 1654 on the scroll.