When a young and gifted Flemish artist received his first significant commission in Palermo in 1624, he must have believed his luck was in.
Upon his arrival, however, the 25-year-old Anthony van Dyck was promptly quarantined because of the plague. He was inspired to paint La Madonna del Rosario, a gesture of thanks to Santa Rosalia, the city’s patron saint, who was credited with freeing the city from the disease.
Depicting a gazing Virgin Mary with a string of rosary beads in one hand and baby Jesus in her arm, the painting was destined for the church of Santa Caterina, a Renaissance landmark decorated with dazzling frescoes, stucco details and coloured marble.
It was kept at the church, home to relics including Santa Rosalia’s bones, until 1922, when it was provisionally relocated to Palazzo Abatellis, a regional-run museum 750 metres down the road, for safekeeping.
It remained at the museum for more than 100 years, until last month, when the painting was temporarily returned to Santa Caterina. Its stay was supposed to be limited initially to the church’s grand reopening after a year-long restoration that cost €900,000, but a row has broken out over the painting’s permanent location.
The custodians of Santa Catarina have argued that La Madonna del Rosario should remain at the church, which has 300,000 visitors a year, about 8.5 times more than the estimated 35,000 of the Palazzo.
Santa Caterina, Palermo, Sicily
ALAMY
Giuseppe Bucaro, the church’s rector, said the work should stay where large crowds could enjoy it. “The church is safe,” he said. “We need to put the painting at the heart of the community.”
FEC, the state body that owns the painting and administers many of Italy’s religious buildings, agreed that La Madonna should remain at the church. However, Sicily’s regional government has called for it to be returned to the museum.
Mario La Rocca, director-general of the region’s heritage division, said the church was entitled to display the painting exclusively for two periods each year: a month starting on Christmas Eve and during the “Month of Mary” in May.
Bucaro said he opposed the work being shuttled back and forth. “It’s not very respectful of the painting,” he said.
He has won support from Marilena Volpes, La Rocca’s predecessor. “The Santa Caterina complex is part of an indivisible whole,” she said. “Every element within it has a meaning that is lost when taken out of context.”
Bucaro was confident a compromise would be reached regarding Van Dyck’s painting. The regional authorities did not respond to requests for comment
Another Madonna del Rosario painting by Van Dyck, showing the Virgin Mary surrounded by saints including Rosalia, is displayed at Palermo’s Oratory of Rosario di San Domenico.
The city has a long history of art security concerns. In 1969, Caravaggio’s Nativity with Saint Francis and Saint Lawrence (1609) was stolen from the Oratory of Saint Lawrence. Investigators have long suspected the Sicilian mafia is responsible.