Datei:Stigmata.jpg

(active 1240-1270 in Florence)

St Francis Receiving the Stigmata 1240-50 Tempera on wood, 81 x 51 cm Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

This is a portable Franciscan diptych which critics variously associated with the Luccan school of the Berlinghieri. In actual fact the work seems to characterize admirably a period of Florentine art represented by the master mosaicists of the cupola of the Baptistery and Coppo di Marcovaldo.

Characteristic of this master, who may reasonably be considered pre-Giottesque, was a direct and vehement insistence on the significance of the scene. Note, for example, the naturalness of the surroundings, with the hill and the temple rising above and almost holding up the kneeling saint as if to emphasize his bodily weight. This concreteness, a quality at the heart of Florentine painting from these very early times, might explain why Vasari attributed the work to Cimabue.

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Author: MASTER of San Francesco Bardi Title: St Francis Receiving the Stigmata Time-line: 1201-1250 School: Italian Form: painting