The Miracle of the Most Holy Sacrament in Turin: The Procession and the Descent of the Host

Together with its companion painting of The Fall of the Jenny-Ass, shown next to it, this work belonged to the lawyer Giambattista Boasso, decurion and secretary of the City of Turin, who in 1742 donated both works to the church of Corpus Domini. In 1872, the church loaned them to the Museo Civico. They portray two moments of the Miracle of the Host, which took place in Turin on 16 June 1453. The host had been stolen, together with the monstrance that contained it, and hidden in the packsaddle of a jenny-ass by a soldier in René of Anjou’s army while the troops were on their way towards Lombardy. The two works show the moment when the ass falls and the theft is discovered, and the moment of the miracle when the host, shining bright, has risen up towards the heavens and come down into the hands of Bishop Lodovico di Romagnano.