1181/1182 -1226 · poverty, nature and stigmata

Bellini, Van Eyck, Giotto and Caravaggio make Francis a saint of landscape, stigmata, fraternal death and stripped-down meditation.

Francis of Assisi founded a fraternity dedicated to evangelical poverty and preaching. Giovanni Bellini shows it in a landscape bathed in light, emerging from his shelter with open arms; the image has often been linked to the stigmata, but it does not show the usual seraphic rays and maintains a fruitful ambiguity. Jan van Eyck explicitly represents Francis receiving the stigmata, accompanied by Brother Léon, in a meticulous landscape where vision and observable world coexist. Giotto explicitly represents Francis receiving the stigmata, accompanied by Brother Léon, in a meticulous landscape where vision and observable world coexist. Giotto recounts the death of the saint surrounded by brothers: the body, the community and the soul carried to heaven articulate a collective memory. Caravaggio recounts the death of the saint surrounded by brothers: the body, the community and the soul carried to heaven articulate a collective memory. Caravaggio recounts the death of the saint surrounded by brothers: the body, the community and the soul carried to heaven articulate a collective memory. Caravaggio finally reduces Francis in meditation to the robe, the skull and a austere light, giving poverty material strength. The selection "Saint Francis/Saint Francis of Assisi" notably compares Saint Francis in the desert and Saint Francis receiving the stigmata. His reading favors the atmosphere.

Francis is not just the saint of birds: his image is based on a radical way of inhabiting the world, the body and poverty.