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The Great British Art Tour: what connects a bleeding fresco with Lady Hamilton? Dr Amy Orrock, senior curator, and Annelise Hone, collections manager It is Pasquetta (Easter Monday) in the Neapolitan countryside. Crowds of revellers gather, enjoying the spring air and each other’s company. Figures recline beneath the trees, smoking and picnicking, while in the sunlit foreground a group of young girls dance the tarantella, accompanied by musicians. One of the musicians plays a triccheballacche, a traditional percussive instrument of southern Italy, with three hammers that produces a sound like a tambourine. The crowds are headed towards the church of the Madonna dell’Arco, on the right, which had been a popular place of pilgrimage since 1450, when a fresco of the virgin and child was accidentally struck by a ball and, as legend has it, began to bleed. The veneration of the shrine intensified after it survived the eruption of Vesuvius in 1631 – th ....