St Peter’s Basilica – The hidden demon
There is a painting in St Peter's Church, a work by the painter Antonio Vassilacchi, known as l'Aliense. It is called the 'Triumph of the Benedictine Order', and depicts saints, popes, cardinals, bishops and abbots, all gathered together in a large crowd. The peculiarity of this work is that if you focus your attention on St. Benedict and on the two slices of sky in which the sun and the moon can be seen, instead of them you can see a disturbing and demonic figure in the background, a hidden character that you would not expect to find inside a basilica.