Scenes from the Lives of the Founding Saints (4-5)

The picture shows the scene of St Nilus Heals a Boy, and above it the scene of The Funeral of St Nilus. This scenes are located on the wall opposite to the window wall of the chancel. They are from the seven scenes depicting events from the lives of the two founder saints.

The miracle scene depicts the healing of the son of a Byzantine officer who was possessed by a demon. The exorcising saint, assisted by a kneeling brother, dips his finger into an oil lamp suspended in front of an image of the Madonna, aware that the drop of oil will drive out the demon. Raphael's altarpiece of the Transfiguration, the lower part of which shows the apostles healing a moonstruck boy, served as a pattern for the possessed boy.

The burial scene represents the transfer of the saint's corpse from the monastery of St Agatha, where Nilus had died, to Grottaferrata. The unusual view of the saint lying on his bier, in extreme foreshortening and with naked feet, quite clearly resembles Caravaggio's altarpiece The Death of the Virgin, whose installation in Rome in 1606 had caused a scandal.