Happy Easter!

Holy Easter 2024

Venetian painter Marco Basaiti, when he painted this panel between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and now displayed in the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, wanted to represent the risen Christ in a serene attitude and at the same time deliberately enriched the representation with some symbolic elements that can easily be translated into a particular Easter wish.
On the left we see the darkness of the now empty tomb, while by contrast the sky is suffused with a luminous blue colour: Christ’s Easter is in fact the victory over death and the darkness of the absurd, and restores us to the hope of a more serene light, radiated by the brightness of the Resurrection.
At the bottom left, right next to Christ’s right leg, we read a Latin writing, taken from Saint Paul’s letter to the Romans, which translated reads: «Death will no longer have power over me». It is as if Christ himself recited this phrase; but the Artist wanted the gaze of the risen Lord to pierce the painting, so to speak, and come out to meet the eyes of those who contemplate this work, that is – now – each of us, in search of a dialogue, in which we are given the certainty that even for those who believe in the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, death will no longer have any power.
And this is the best wish for this Easter.

Mons. Marco Navoni, Prefect of the Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana