Santa Rosalia

Van Dyck came to Palermo in 1624 for a single commission, a portrait of the Spanish viceroy, and walked straight into a catastrophe. Bubonic plague broke out, killed tens of thousands, took the viceroy himself, and left the painter stuck in quarantine on the island for months. That same year workers on a nearby mountain unearthed bones believed to be those of Rosalia, a medieval hermit, and the city seized on her as its protector against the disease. Van Dyck painted her at least six times during those shut-in months, young and lifted up by angels toward the light. This version stayed in Palermo, and now hangs at the Palazzo Abatellis in the city that had made her its patron during that plague year.