01 Work, RELIGIOUS ART - Interpretation the bible, With Footnotes - 119

Flemish School 17th century
The Stigmatization of Saint Francis

Oil on panel
65 x 51.5 cm
Private collection

The Stigmatization of Saint Francis. Two years before his death, according to his custom, Saint Francis had repaired to Mt La Verna to spend the 40 days preceding the feast of St. Michael the Archangel in prayer and fasting.

On the morning of the feast of the Exultation of the Holy Cross, as he was praying in a secret and solitary place on the mountain, Saint Francis beheld a seraph with six wings all afire, descending to him from the heights of heaven. 

Francis wondered at the appearance of the vision. But he understood the vision as a revelation of the Lord and that it was being presented to his eyes by Divine Providence so that the friend of Christ might be transformed into Christ crucified, not through martyrdom of the flesh, but through a spiritual holocaust.

The vision left behind it a marvelous fire in the heart of Saint Francis, and a token impressed on his flesh. For there began immediately to appear in his hands and in his feet something like nails as he had just seen them in the vision of the Crucified. The heads of the nails in the hands and feet were round and black, and the points were somewhat long and bent, as if they had been turned back. On the right side, as if it had been pierced by a lance, was the mark of a red wound, from which blood often flowed and stained his tunic. More on Stigmatization of Saint Francis

Saint Francis of Assisi (1181/1182 – 3 October 1226), was an Italian Roman Catholic friar and preacher. He founded the men's Order of Friars Minor, the women’s Order of Saint Clare, the Third Order of Saint Francis and the Custody of the Holy Land. Francis is one of the most venerated religious figures in history.

In 1219, he went to Egypt in an attempt to convert the Sultan to put an end to the conflict of the Crusades. By this point, the Franciscan Order had grown to such an extent that its primitive organizational structure was no longer sufficient. He returned to Italy to organize the Order. In 1224, he received the stigmata, during the apparition of Seraphic angels in a religious ecstasy making him the first recorded person to bear the wounds of Christ's Passion. More on Saint Francis of Assisi

Flemish painting flourished from the early 15th century until the 17th century, gradually becoming distinct from the painting of the rest of the Low Countries, especially the modern Netherlands. In the early period, up to about 1520, the painting of the whole area is (especially in the Anglophone world) typically considered as a whole, as Early Netherlandish painting. This was dominated by the Flemish south, but painters from the north were also important. Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting, of which Antwerp became the centre, covers the period up to about 1580 or later, by the end of which the north and south Netherlands had become politically separated. Flemish Baroque painting was especially important in the first half of the 17th century, dominated by Rubens.

In theory the term does not refer to modern Flanders but to the County of Flanders and neighbouring areas of the Low Countries such as the Tournaisis and Duchy of Brabant. More on Flemish painting

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