Pilar Monastery Cloister: One Good Deed Wins Heaven

One Good Deed Wins Heaven
The image shows a framed painting set into the wall of the Pilar Monastery cloister. It accompanies an explanation board that briefly describes the story behind this painting. Here is the text from that board:

ONE GOOD DEED WINS HEAVEN
The duke was an atheist. Two travelling monks knocked at the door of his manor at night. Knowing her husbands temperament, the wife gave them shelter in the horse stable. When the duke came he heard them praying and rebuked his wife. She replied, But they are priests

When the duke died, nothing good was attributed to him. The devil claimed him as his own when St. Michael weighed his deeds on the scale. However, his guardian angel remembered the one good deed he had done. That tilted the balance in his favour, for one good deed his soul was taken to Heaven.

This painting captures the story through multiple scenes depicted within a single composition. At the center is St. Michael, holding his signature sword in his right hand and a scale in his left. The left plate of the scale has the duke’s soul in it, and his guardian angel is adding fodder to it, symbolizing the good deed he performed by allowing the monks to stay in his house. In the right pan is a small figure representing the Devil, who appears to be trying to jump out as the balance turns against him.

The devil in the ground below is reaching up toward the scale. As you can see, the balance is tilted in the duke’s favour. St. Michael is looking at the devil and swinging his sword to hold him back. At the bottom left is the duke’s mansion, in front of which are two monks — one trying to sleep, the other praying — and a worker carrying fodder to the horses. To their right is the dining room scene, where the duke’s wife is feeding the two monks.

Finally, at the upper left, an angel carries the duke’s soul toward Heaven, completing the story and illustrating the title of the painting, “One Good Deed Wins Heaven.”

Unlike most of the other paintings in the Pilar Monastery cloister, which depict events from the lives of saints such as St. Francis of Assisi and St. Joseph, this one tells a moral story about an anonymous duke, that too an atheist, rather than a documented historical or religious figure. It reads more like a fable or parable, using an invented character to illustrate a lesson, in this case that even a single act of charity can tip the balance between damnation and salvation. Despite extensive research, the author has been unable to trace the origin of this particular story or find another painting depicting it.

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