Last Wednesday was the anniversary of the death of St Francis of Assisi, so this week’s picture is an altarpiece by Giotto di Bondone and his workshop depicting St Francis Receiving the Stigmata. It was painted 700 years ago.

The artist may have known Thomas of Celano’s vivid account of Francis’s stigmatisation, which occurred during a 40-day fast in the mountain retreat of La Verna:

“Francis saw in a divine vision a man standing over him, like a six-winged seraph, his hands spread, and his feet joined, and fixed to the cross. Of the wings, two were stretched over his head, two were extended as though to fly, and two wrapped round the whole body. Seeing these things, the blessed servant of the Most High was filled with the greatest amazement, but could not understand what the vision might mean. Alternately he was filled with joy and sorrow, and while he was not able to attain any comprehension of the vision, and its strangeness filled his heart, the marks of nails started to appear on his hands and feet, just as he had seen them shortly before on the crucified man above him.”

Surprised at prayer, Giotto’s statuesque Francis seems mesmerised by the miraculous apparition in the sky above him. The image of Christ, enfolded by the seraph, fixes the saint with a solemn gaze. Rays of light shoot from the wounds of His Passion to the selfsame points on Francis’s passionate, adoring body. The saint’s brow is furrowed, suggesting that Giotto meant to show the moment when, as Celano wrote, the vision’s “strangeness filled his heart”.

In accordance with the pictorial conventions of the time, Francis has been depicted on a considerably larger scale than his surroundings. Kneeling in reverence, he nonetheless towers over the pair of toy-like...

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