Contents


Chapter 1: The Master

(Raphael and Giulio Romano, The Holy Family, or The Pearl; School of Raphael, The Visitation; Sebastiano del Piombo, Cardinal Bandinello Sauli, His Secretary, and Two Geographers; Raphael, Portrait of a Cardinal)

Chapter 2: Deciphering Raphael

(Raphael, Pope Leo X with Cardinals Giulio de’ Medici and Luigi de’ Rossi; Leonardo da Vinci,The Virgin of the Rocks; Raphael, The School of Athens)

Chapter 3: The New Apocalypse

Chapter 4: Making the Invisible Visible

(Raphael, The Holy Family with an Oak Tree; Raphael, Portrait of Tommaso Inghirami; Giovanni Francesco Penni, The Transfiguration)

Chapter 5: The Two Baby Jesuses

(Ambrogio Bergognone, Christ among the Doctors; Bernardino Luini, The Holy Family)

Chapter 6: Little Ghosts

Chapter 7: Botticelli, Heretic Painter

(Sandro Botticelli, The Story of Nastagio degli Onesti, I, II, III; Sandro Botticelli, The Mystical Nativity)

Chapter 8: The Path to Glory

Chapter 9: Titian’s Secret

(Titian, The Glory)

Chapter 10: Charles and the Lance of Christ

(Titian, Carlos V at the Battle of Mühlberg)

Chapter 11: The Prado’s Holy Grail

(Juan de Juanes, The Last Supper; Juan de Juanes, Christ with the Eucharist; Juan de Juanes, The Immaculate Conception)

Chapter 12: Mister X

(Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Fray Julián of Alcalá’s Vision of the Ascension of the Soul of King Philip II of Spain)

Chapter 13: The Garden of Earthly Delights

(Hieronymus Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights, or The Millennial Reign)

Chapter 14: The Secret Family of Brueghel the Elder

(Pieter Brueghel the Elder, The Alchemist; Hans Holbein, Alphabet of Death; Pieter Brueghel the Elder, The Triumph of Death)

Chapter 15: El Greco’s “Other Humanity”

(El Greco, The Dream of Philip II, or The Adoration of the Name of Jesus, An Allegory of the Holy League, and The Glory); El Greco, The Incarnation; El Greco, The Crucifixion)

Chapter 16: Checkmate to the Master

Epilogue: The Last Puzzle?

About Javier Sierra

Notes

List of Prado-Owned Paintings Mentioned in the Book