Santa Rosalia intercede per la città di Palermo

Van Dyck sailed into Palermo in the spring of 1624, a Flemish painter of about 25 already making his name in Italy. Then plague broke out and the port city was sealed off. That same summer, on the mountain above the harbour, workmen found bones said to be those of Rosalie, a noblewoman of the 12th century who had left the world to live as a hermit in a cave. The city declared her its protector, paraded the relics through the streets, and when the plague eased she was credited with lifting it. Van Dyck, shut in with everyone else, painted her several times over. Here she is carried up toward heaven by child-angels, pleading for the stricken town spread out below. Scholars still disagree whether he finished this particular canvas during the quarantine or a few years later, back home in Antwerp. Palermo has kept her feast every July since.