How A Painting Saved a Town from War

here's a story that's always fascinated

me it's about a small tusken village

called San Vito and a mysterious

painting in its old chapel the painting

wasn't signed by anyone famous and at

first glance it didn't look especially

remarkable it was just a simple portrait

of a woman holding a bowl of

pomegranates yet there was something

about her face it was her eyes that

really seemed to follow anybody that

passed by the legend goes that centuries

ago some unnamed traveler showed up in

San Vito left the painting in the chapel

and vanished without a word nobody knew

who made it but over time the villagers

started believing that the painting

watched over them we're going to fast

forward to the 1940s when World War II

was raging one day an enemy troops

rolled through the village destroying

every single thing in sight everyone

expected the worst in the village but

when the soldiers Came Upon the chapel

and saw this painting they stopped and

it turns out one of them was an art

historian Before the War Began and he

recognized the piece of art he'd seen it

mentioned in a book as a possible lost

masterpiece by the Renaissance artist

Pierro dala Francesca even though it had

never been confirmed for an existence

and had never been authenticated

amazingly that Soldier convinced his

Commander to spare the chapel and by

extension the entire Village sanvito

survived the war all because of that one

painting over the years people have

argued about who really painted it some

say it's just an ordinary work with a

legend wrapped around it others insist

it's truly a hidden Renaissance treasure

the truly remarkable thing about this

entire story is the power that art has

and its uncanny ability to move us to

make us pause and in this case to even

protect an entire place and its people

in its Darkest Hour