Saint Dominic Raises Napoleone Orsini

The story comes from the earliest accounts of Saint Dominic, the founder of the Dominican friars. In Rome, on an Ash Wednesday, he was with a community of nuns taking possession of their new convent of San Sisto when word came that a young man named Napoleone, nephew of Cardinal Stefano of Fossanova, had been thrown from his horse and killed. Dominic had the body carried in, said Mass, and called the young man by name to rise, and he stood up unhurt. One of the nuns present, Sister Cecilia, later told the story, and it was painted again and again for Dominican churches.

Balestra's canvas had been kept in the museum's storerooms. It was brought out for the new hang of the 17th- and 18th-century rooms that opened in December 2025, and the museum's announcement of those rooms singled it out as remarkable.