During the exhibition on Lorenzo Lotto that took place in Rome at the Scuderie del Quirinale, an experiment was organised for secondary school students. The educational activity focused on the specific iconographic features of some saints represented by Lorenzo Lotto, that can be found in the works of other Renaissance artists as well. Hence, an iconographic code was identified and then connected with aspects of the linguistic code, notably synonimy and metonymy. The article discusses the underpinned theoretical aspects, the characteristics of the tests used in the experiment, the results of the activity.