It's a Miracle

Another cultural trip round art galleries and museums has once again strengthened my theory that religious miracles stopped happening when cameras were invented.

We were lucky enough to be on a guided tour by an expert of some of the works in the National Gallery in London who told us all about this picture by Titian, the Vendramin Family.

There's lots going on symbolically in this one, but first the miracle. The Vendramins were rich, powerful men down Venice way courtesy of that cross on the right. Years before, that cross which contained a bit of wood from the true cross on which our Lord had been crucified ie. the most important religious relic ever if you're a catholic, was being transported to Venice.

Like you do, you give it to some butter-fingered oaf to carry (no it wasn't Francis Meli) who promptly dropped it from a bridge into the canal.

Luckily this is when the miracle occurred, because it never hit the water, it hovered a foot or two above the canal until one brave soul jumped in to recover it. His name was Vendramin and the family never looked back.

The second miracle concerns me, because on the art expert's tour, the original face of the young man on the left, which had been painted over to give him a more elevated position in the family hierarchy, was now showing through the thinning oil paint.

Could I see it, could I heck. Total strangers in the group kept saying, 'it's there. There,' and gesticulating wildly along with Jaki. Now thanks to the miracle of the Internet and this print I nicked, I can see it. Can you?