Miracle of the child Carlo Nava, who was born blind

This 1610 large canvas for Milan Cathedral depicts the miraculous healing of Carlo Nava, a child born blind who recovered his sight through the intercession of Saint Carlo Borromeo — the city's recently canonised (1610) archbishop whose cult was at that moment literally brand-new. Procaccini was deeply embedded in the Milanese devotional culture Borromeo had shaped, having executed major works for the Duomo and related institutions throughout his career. Painting a miracle attributed to the freshly canonised saint placed Procaccini at the centre of the cult's visual propaganda programme. The work would have been experienced by Milanese congregations still alive to the living memory of Borromeo's episcopate, making it not simply hagiographic illustration but a documentation of contemporary miraculous events in their own city.

Large church canvases for the Duomo required Procaccini to scale his figure-centred style to architectural dimensions. The composition must manage the miracle's principal figures — the blind child, the saint, the family — alongside a crowd of witnesses whose varied reactions authenticate the event. Strong upward compositional movement from the kneeling family to the elevated saint organises the hierarchy of miracle.