From 30 October 2016 to 29 January 2017, the Sala Podiani of the Galleria Nazionale dell'Umbria in Perugia hosts Francesco and the painted cross, a precious exhibition documenting the development of the painted cross, starting from the seventies of the thirteenth century up to the first two decades of the following century, in which the iconographic motif was increasingly linked to the figure of Saint Francis of Assisi, often represented at the foot of the cross, in adoration of Christ.
This is the Cross of S. Francesco al Prato, a tempera on panel of enormous dimensions (488,5x355x13 cm), painted in 1272 by the Master of San Francesco, conserved in the National Gallery of Umbria. The destination of the work (in the church that housed the remains of Blessed Giles, Francis' 'third companion') and the fact that it was built during the generalate of Saint Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, author of the Legenda Maior, led us to reflect on the possibility to recognize in it the archetype of an iconography which, starting from Umbria, spread with rapidity and capillary penetration. Indeed, it was Bonaventure himself who strongly proposed the image of Francis with the stigmata and the cult of the blood of Christ.
The exhibition itinerary, which will present 9 masterpieces, all of Umbrian origin, reveals another surprising discovery: an extraordinary unpublished panel from the Monastery of S. Paolo in Orvieto. Recently freed from the heavy repainting that altered its appearance, the cross has shown an extraordinary pictorial quality and a dating to the last decade of the thirteenth century, while the hand can only belong to one of the best painters who took turns on the scaffolding of the Assisi construction site close Contact Giotto.
The exhibition Francis and the painted cross is curated by Marco Pierini, director of the National Gallery of Umbria, with the patronage of the Papal Basilica and Sacred Convent of S. Francesco in Assisi and the Umbria Region.
