When Pieter Claeissens the Elder was painting Moses Breaking Pharaoh’s Crown, Europe was entering a complex and confusing period of continual warfare. The crude version of this history blames it all either on Catholics trying to wipe out Protestants or Protestants trying to eliminate Catholics. Actually, it had more to do with money, geo-politics, empire, trade and a ruling class that was deeply incompetent.

A small show full of small items on now at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto opens up a vast world of medieval mystical experience.

Looking at the cathedral-scale art by one of the world’s foremost photographers, theologian Dennis Patrick O’Hara said, “Yes, it’s awesome and it’s awful.”

If all you want for Christmas is to be more spiritual — pray more deeply, contemplate on a higher plain — there’s a 16th-century app for that.