Lo Spasimo di Sicilia

This panel was painted in Rome around 1515 for a monastery in Palermo, and to reach Sicily it had to go by sea. The ship ran into a storm and broke apart on the rocks. According to the story told for centuries afterward, the whole crew and cargo were lost, and only this crate survived, washing ashore intact near Genoa, where people took its survival as a sign it was something holy. It was eventually carried on to Palermo, where it became famous under the name Lo Spasimo, the swoon. That is the moment Raphael painted. Christ has fallen under the weight of the cross on the road to Calvary, and in the foreground his mother collapses toward him, held back by the others. Centuries later Napoleon's armies took it to Paris, where restorers peeled the paint from its wooden panel and laid it onto canvas, the surface you see in Madrid today.