Weihe des heiligen Aloisius von Gonzaga zum Schutzpatron der Jugend

Goya was about 17 when he painted this, decades before the court portraits and the black nightmares, when he was a teenager training in Zaragoza. The Jesuits commissioned it for a church in Calatayud, a town in Aragon, to show Pope Benedict XIII declaring the young Jesuit Aloysius Gonzaga the patron saint of youth. Then history swept it aside. In 1767 the Spanish crown expelled the Jesuits from the entire empire, and the painting dropped out of view, ending up in a remote sanctuary at Jaraba. It stayed lost to scholars until 1985, when it was recognised as the earliest signed work by Goya we have. On the pope's scroll are the Latin words telling the young to look and follow the saint's example.