The Painting That Pierced a Young Count's Heart

In 1720, a twenty-year-old German nobleman named Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf wandered into an art gallery in Düsseldorf. He was wealthy, educated, and comfortable — a man whose future was already mapped out in courts and commerce. Then he stopped before a painting by Domenico Feti depicting the thorn-crowned Christ. Beneath it, an inscription read: "This I did for you; what have you done for me?"…