Le miracle de saint Eusèbe de Crémone

Raphael was about 19 when he took this commission in Città di Castello, a town in Umbria where a wool merchant named Domenico Gavari was fitting out his burial chapel. The chapel was dedicated to Saint Jerome, so the small panels running along the base of the altarpiece told stories about him. In this one Jerome's follower Eusebius of Cremona lays the saint's cloak over three dead men, who come back to life and describe heaven, purgatory and hell, which settled an argument with heretics who denied there was anything after death. The panel is the size of a large book, 26 by 43 centimetres. The altarpiece was taken apart in the 17th century and given away in pieces, reportedly to a visiting cardinal. This panel has been in Lisbon since 1866, while the Crucifixion it sat beneath hangs in London.