Sala Sant'Ignazio - Fondazione guido Arezzo

The Church of Sant'Ignazio is one of the most important 17th-century buildings in Arezzo. Today it is deconsecrated and brings together, in a dramatic display, large Baroque altarpieces dedicated to Francis. The works span a little over a century, from Jacopo da Empoli's painting of 1602 to Agostino Veracini's of 1709. Among them you will find Guercino, Pietro da Cortona and Luca Giordano. These are the years of the Counter-Reformation, and the painters choose the aspects of the saint closest to popular devotion. You see him praying alone in dark caves and nocturnal landscapes, receiving the stigmata, falling into ecstasy supported by an angel. Or he receives the Child from the Madonna and acts as an intermediary between the faithful and God. Two things link these canvases: the light, carefully designed to strike the viewer, and a nature charged with an ancient sense of the sacred. One canvas tells a rare episode: the legend of the pope who in 1449 rediscovers the saint's body, hidden deep beneath the altar in Assisi.

Via Carducci, arezzo

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Sala Sant'Ignazio

In 1449, according to a legend, Pope Nicholas V goes down at night with torches beneath the basilica of Assisi. There he finds Francis standing, his wounds still bleeding. The true body will only be found in 1818, after fifty-two nights of secret digging. In this deconsecrated church, nine Baroque altarpieces await you. One of them, by Guercino, was stolen in 1973 and recovered in 1998. In another, by Jacopo da Empoli, the book at the saint's feet bears a psalm in Greek: a memory of Savonarola

Sala Sant'Ignazio - Fondazione guido Arezzo