Mostra San Francesco - Fondazione Guido d'Arezzo

On the eight-hundredth anniversary of the death of Saint Francis, Arezzo tells the story of its special bond with the saint through the way his image has changed over the centuries. Francis is one of the few saints whose appearance was fixed early on, thanks to first-hand accounts: the frail body marked by the stigmata, the face hollowed by poverty, the habit somewhere between grey and brown, the cord with three knots. Some of his earliest images are in fact the work of a painter active in Arezzo, Margarito. Over two floors, you follow this story from the thirteenth-century panels onwards. At first, painters try to capture his features and recount his miracles. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, they show him in prayer and in ecstasy. The Enlightenment all but sets him aside, and the nineteenth century rediscovers him. In 1926, for the seventh centenary, he also becomes the "Italian saint" of Fascist propaganda. The exhibition ends with an oak sculpture from the 1960s, born of the dialogue between art and the Church promoted by Paul VI.

Piazza San Francesco 4

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San Francesco Exhibition

On the eighth centenary of the death of Saint Francis, the city of Arezzo celebrates its special relationship with the saint through an exhibition that tells the story of the evolution of his image over the centuries. Francis, who died in 1226 and was already well known during his lifetime, is one of the rare saints whose iconography was established on the basis of first-hand accounts and figurative testimonies that, although idealized, hand down his essential features: the frail figure marked by the stigmata (that is, the imprints of Christ's wounds during the Passion), the face shaped by the rigors of his choice of poverty, the dark habit between grey and brown, the cord with three knots as a belt. It is precisely to a painter active in Arezzo, Margarito, that some of the oldest images of the saint are owed. From the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries through the whole of the fifteenth century, painters not only fixed the saint's likeness with the greatest possible fidelity, but also narrated his deeds and his miracles with a wealth of detail. In the sixteenth century and above all in the seventeenth, painters favored the moments of his life that best bear witness to his profound spirituality: in meditation, in prayer and in ecstasy. While in the eighteenth century the presence of Saint Francis in art experienced a progressive decline, in the nineteenth century he returned to favor with all his charge of intense spirituality, but it is above all around 1926, the seventh centenary of his death, that the image of Francis became the object of great interest for artists, thanks also to public competitions and thematic exhibitions.

Mostra San Francesco - Fondazione Guido d'Arezzo