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Veronese Banquet Levi | Mystic Marriage | Battle Lepanto | Annunciation | Assumption | Coronation Virgin | Crucifixion | St Francis Stigmata
Paul Veronese, Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata, at the Accademia Galleries in Venice, Italy
Paul Veronese (1528–1588) “Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata”
Painting – Oil on canvas (256 x 432 cm) 1588Following the death of Saint Francis of Assisi on 4 October 1226, Brother Elias revealed that the last two years of Saint Francis’s life had been marked by a sublime event.
St Francis receives the stigmata This event took place in 1224.
Saint Francis, having lost his sight, had climbed Mount Alverne on the back of a donkey, surrounded by the seven brothers who were dear to him, including Leo, depicted here on the left sitting in the shade of a tree reading a holy book.
This beech-wooded spot, situated about a hundred kilometres from Assisi, was cherished by Saint Francis for its solitude.
On 15 August of that year, 1224, Saint Francis had decided to undertake a forty-day retreat there.
On the following 14 September, the feast day of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, a seraph appeared to Saint Francis, who was blind and despondent, suffering from malaria and covered in ulcers, to reveal to him that he was in fact living out the Passion of Jesus Christ.
St Francis receives the stigmata According to some, the seraphim took the form of Jesus on the cross, whilst others claimed it was an angel.
St Bonaventure’s “Legenda Major” states that Francis was alone at the time of this revelation; whilst others maintain that he was accompanied by Brother Leo, who witnessed the scene.
It was this latter version that Veronese chose to depict, showing Brother Leo seated under a tree reading a holy book whilst Saint Francis receives the stigmata.
People wondered whether Francis’s stigmata were open wounds, and whether nails had pierced his hands and feet.
Veronese, with great insight, chose to depict the heavenly apparition as a glowing cloud from which rays—similar to laser beams—pierce the hands, foot and chest of Saint Francis.
St Francis receives the stigmata St Francis has his arms outstretched and his palms open, in the posture of one offering himself to the Holy Spirit.
Though blind, he regained his sight at this crucial moment, as he stares intently at the blood-red cloud from which the sacred rays emanate, piercing him.
Veronese took care to set the scene in a dark, wooded location to emphasise the intensity of the red rays bearing the stigmata of Saint Francis.
Francis’s solitude at this sacred moment is heightened by his position, where the ray pierces his chest at the centre of the painting whilst Brother Leo has his back turned to him, absorbed in his reading, present yet elsewhere.
By juxtaposing the serenity of Leo, absorbed in his reading , with the intensity of Francis’s mystical wound, Veronese perfectly illustrates the contrast between the real and the supernatural.
Veronese Banquet Levi | Mystic Marriage | Battle Lepanto | Annunciation | Assumption | Coronation Virgin | Crucifixion | St Francis Stigmata
Artists Tintoretto | Veronese |
Accademia Artists | Location Schedule Tickets Authorizations
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