Polittico di San Gregorio

When Antonello painted this altarpiece in 1473, oil painting was still largely a northern secret. Most Italian panels of the day were built up in egg tempera, but Antonello had learned to work color in thin oil glazes, and he used them here for a convent church in his home city of Messina. Look closely and the surface tells a harder story. In December 1908 an earthquake flattened much of Messina and killed tens of thousands. This polyptych survived, but it was left out in the rain for days afterward, and it has been under conservation on and off ever since. The saints' faces are worn now, their gold rubbed thin by a catastrophe that came more than four centuries after they were painted.