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A light-skinned man kneels in front of a tall, rocky, tree-covered mountain and a small pink church. He wears brown robes and a tonsured haircut (shaved in middle). A circular gold halo is behind his head. His hands are raised, palms facing outward. He looks up and right at a figure in the sky, a light-skinned man nailed to a cross. Six red wings surround him. Out of the wounds at the flying man’s hands, feet, and side extend red lines. These lines connect to the corresponding locations on the kneeling man’s body.

Gallery Text

In this painting by Gaddi, Saint Francis of Assisi receives Christ’s wounds (stigmata) from a vision of the crucified Christ borne by a seraph, an angel with six fiery wings. The miracle is believed to have taken place in 1224, two years before Francis’s death, while he was praying at Mount La Verna in Tuscany. This arresting image— possibly intended for a Franciscan church in Florence— was based on an earlier painting by Giotto, Gaddi’s godfather. Giotto’s influence on Gaddi can be seen in the naturalistic portrayal of Francis’s concentrated expression and in the folds of his brown habit, rendered through soft brushwork and subtle gradation of tone.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
1929.234
People
Taddeo Gaddi, Italian (active c.1325 - 1366)
Title
The Stigmatization of Saint Francis
Classification
Paintings
Work Type
painting
Date
c. 1325-1330
Places
Creation Place: Europe, Italy, Tuscany, Florence
Culture
Italian
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/304462

Location

Location
Level 2, Room 2500, European Art, 13th–16th century, Art and Image in Europe
View this object's location on our interactive map

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Tempera and gold on panel transferred to modern panel
Dimensions
sight: 212.1 x 149.5 cm (83 1/2 x 58 7/8 in.)
framed: 237.5 x 174.9 cm (93 1/2 x 68 7/8 in.)

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
Probably church of Santa Croce, Florence; perhaps church of San Francesco in Borgo San Lorenzo, by 1603; Count Niccolò Magherini-Graziani, Borgo Pinti, 15, Florence ("kept at his country house, the villa Poggitazzi near Arezzo"); purchased by the Fogg Art Museum from Magherini-Graziani and via a Florentine dealer named Benedetti, through Umberto Gnoli, 1929

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Friends of the Fogg Art Museum Fund
Accession Year
1929
Object Number
1929.234
Division
European and American Art
Contact
am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu
Permissions

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Publication History

  • Francesco Nicolai, Mugello e Val de Sieve (Borgo S. Lorenzo, 1914), pp. 435-436
  • [Reproduction only], "Accessions", Fogg Art Museum Notes, (June 1930)., repr. p. 235
  • R. Arcadius Lyon, "Restoration of the Paint Film", Bulletin of the Fogg Art Museum (March 1932), I, no. 3, pp. 43-47, pp. 43-47, figs. 1-6 (details)
  • Margaret E. Gilman, "Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata", Bulletin of the Fogg Art Museum (March 1932), I, no. 3, 42-43, pp. 42-43, repr. on cover
  • Alastair Smart, The Assisi Problem and the Art of Giotto: A Study of the Legend of St. Francis in the Upper Church of San Francesco, Assisi, The Clarendon Press (Oxford, 1971), p. 110
  • Burton B. Fredericksen and Federico Zeri, Census of Pre-Nineteenth-Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA, 1972), p. 77
  • Everett Fahy, "Italian Painting Before 1500", Apollo (May 1978), vol. 107, no. 195, pp. 377-388, pp. 380-381, repr. p. 379 as fig. 3
  • James A. Stubblebine, Assisi and the Rise of Vernacular Art, Harper & Row (New York, 1985), pp. 33, 118-119, fig. 107
  • Kristin A. Mortimer and William G. Klingelhofer, Harvard University Art Museums: A Guide to the Collections, Harvard University Art Museums and Abbeville Press (Cambridge and New York, 1986), no. 158, p. 140, repr.
  • Edgar Peters Bowron, European Paintings Before 1900 in the Fogg Art Museum: A Summary Catalogue including Paintings in the Busch-Reisinger Museum, Harvard University Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 1990), cat. no. 476 p. 108, repr. p. 33 in color and p. 280 as no. 476 in b/w
  • Klaus Krüger, Der frühe Bildkult des Franziskus in Italien: Gestalt- und Funktionswandel des Tafelbildes im 13. und 14. Jahrhundert, Gebr. Mann (Berlin, 1992), pp. 178-180, figs. 345, 346
  • Masterpieces of world art : Fogg Art Museum, Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Busch-Reisinger Museum, 1997
  • Mojmír S. Frinta, Punched Decoration on Late Medieval Panel and Miniature Painting, Maxdorf Publishers (Prague, Czechoslovakia, 1998), p. 62, under Ada32
  • William Cook, Images of St. Francis of Assisi in painting, stone and glass, from the earliest images to ca. 1320 in Italy, L. S. Olschki (Florence, Italy, 1999), no. 47, pp. 81-82, repr.
  • William Cook, "Giotto and the Figure of St. Francis", The Cambridge Companion to Giotto, ed. Anne Derbes and Mark Sandona, Cambridge University Press (Cambridge, 2004), p. 267 n. 15
  • Hans Belting, "Franziskus. Der Körper im Mittelalter", Bild und Korper in Mittelalter, ed. Kristin Marek, Wilhelm Fink (Munich, Germany, 2006), pp. 21-36, repr. in color on cover; repr. as fig.2, p. 27
  • Katherine Ashenburg, The Dirt on Clean: An Unsanitized History, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. (Canada, 2007), repr. in b/w p. 60
  • Stephan Wolohojian and Alvin L. Clark, Jr., Harvard Art Museum/ Handbook, ed. Stephan Wolohojian, Harvard Art Museum (Cambridge, 2008), p. 48, repr.
  • Francesca Bewer, A Laboratory for Art: Harvard's Fogg Museum and the Emergence of Conservation in America, 1900-1950, Harvard Art Museum and Yale University Press (U.S.) (Cambridge, MA, 2010), p. 148, fig. 4.5
  • Christine Sciacca, ed., Florence at the Dawn of the Renaissance, exh. cat., J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles, 2012), cat. no. 33, pp. 179-180, repr. p. 178
  • Dominique Thiébaut, Giotto e compagni. In memoriam Luciano Bellosi et Miklos Boskovits, exh. cat., Musée du Louvre (2013), p. 45, repr. fig. 25
  • Marion Heisterberg, Zwischen exemplum und opus absolutum: Studien zum Abzeichnen im italienischen Tre- und Quattrocento zwischen Mustertransfer und Kopie, Deutscher Kunstverlag (Berlin, 2020), pp. 303-305

Exhibition History

  • Re-View: S422-423 Western Art of the Middle Ages & Renaissance, Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Cambridge, 08/16/2008 - 06/18/2011
  • Florence at the Dawn of the Renaissance: Painting and Illumination, 1300-1350, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 11/13/2012 - 02/10/2013; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, 03/16/2013 - 06/16/2013
  • 32Q: 2540 Renaissance, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 07/18/2018 - 11/15/2018
  • 32Q: 2500 Renaissance, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 07/18/2018 - 01/01/2050

Subjects and Contexts

  • Google Art Project
  • Collection Highlights

Related Works

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of European and American Art at am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu