In his biography of Lorenzo Lotto, Carlo Ridolfi mentions a 'Crucifixion' that the Venetian artist painted for an unspecified church in Portobuffolè (Treviso). This work has been virtually ignored by Lotto specialists, who have not verified Ridolfi's testimony, despite the fact that an altarpiece still stands in the church of Santa Maria dei Servi in Portobuffolè, with an inscription on the back declaring it to be a 19th-century copy of the painting attributed to Lotto. The original, after a series of changes of ownership on the Venetian antique market, reconstructed here, finally reached the Stuttgart Staatsgalerie in 1852 under the name of Lotto, although it is now identified as a work by Francesco da Milano, a fine Lombard painter active in the Serravalle area in the first half of the 16th century. This attribution, first proposed by Fritz Heinemann and later taken up by Giorgio Fossaluzza, is confirmed here with a date within the 1510s. As for the commissioner, it is suggested that the painting was requested by the Venetian patrician Stefano da Molin who, as recorded in an epigraph still in the former Servite church, in 1518 had himself buried in front of the altar of Christ where, in all likelihood, Francesco da Milano's work was displayed.