O Milagre de São Donato

Ribera finished this in 1652, the year he died, an old and ailing man in Naples, a city Spain then ruled and where he had spent his whole career. It shows a miracle told of Saint Donatus, a 4th-century bishop of Arezzo in Tuscany: jostled by pagans during mass, he dropped a glass chalice, and when it shattered on the floor he made it whole again. For nearly 300 years no one was sure of the scene. The picture was catalogued as a mass of Pope Gregory the Great until 1963, when a scholar recognized the bishop and the broken cup. The Lavallard brothers, who collected such things, gave it to the Amiens museum in 1890. Ribera keeps the light low and close, so the white of the chalice and the old bishop's face carry the whole story.