On-line gallery
- Reference number
- P00298
- Author
- Raphael (Italian)
- Title
- Christ falls on the way to Calvary
- Chronology
- Ca. 1516
- Technique
- Support
- Measures
- 318 cm x 229 cm
- School
- Theme
- Shown
- Yes
- Entrance
- COLECCION REAL
- Procedence
- Royal Collection
Jacopo Basilio commissioned this
painting for the Monastery of Santa
Maria dello Spasimo in Palermo,
from which it derives its popular
name, lo Spasimo di Sicilia (“The
Wonder of Sicily”), which reflects
Raphael's interest in the depiction
of extreme physical and
psychological states. This work's
rhetorical tone and complex yet
clear composition around two
diagonals that converge on the
figure of Christ, recall tapestry
cartoons for the Vatican. Critics
have pointed out Raphael's debt to
the Nordic engravings of
Schöngauer, Dürer and Lucas of
Leyden.
The Wonder reveals the Church's
official position in the debate as
to the nature of the Virgin's pain
during Christ's Passion by showing
her suffering and compassionate,
but conscious, without
fainting.
This work was highly praised from
the moment it was painted, and
numerous, though not always
credible, stories have been spun
around it. Recently, questions have
been raised as to the veracity of
Vasari's narration of the shipwreck
it suffered during its
transportation. That story is
considered too close to the
miraculous circumstances
surrounding the arrival of one of
Sicily's most famous images
—Tranani's Annunziata— during the
Middle Ages.
The Viceroy of Sicily managed to
get this work ceded to Felipe IV,
who had it hung on the main
altarpiece of the chapel at
Madrid's Alcázar Palace.
It is signed in the center of the
lower edge over a stone.
Location on the map
