Saint Francis

Raibolini Francesco called Francesco Francia

Bologna c. 1450. - 1517)

Long considered to be the work of Perugino, since the 20th century the work has been attributed to Francesco Francia. In the 1925 restoration, the stigmata again became visible, making the figure of the saint clearly identifiable. Standing in front of a landscape – a feature common to many works by the Bolognese painter – Francis displays the stigmata and a book, an allusion to the Rule drawn up for the monastic order he founded (1209).

Object details

Commentary

A certain amount of confusion regarding the artist has surrounded the painting ever since the first inventory mention in 1790, when a ‘St Francis by Pietro Perugino’ was recorded (Della Pergola 1955, p. 38). While the fideicommissary list of 1833 correctly changed the attribution in favour of Francesco Francia, it was the title of the subject, recognised as St Anthony of Padua, that was altered. An error justified by the presence of common attributes such as the small cross and the book, as well as the difficulty, in the past, of being able to see the characteristic stigmata of St Francis clearly. Credit is due to Giacomo Alberto Calogero, whose recent paper traced the attributional history of the work (Calogero 2019, p. 87). After Cavalcaselle, who suggested that the painting was the work of Giacomo Raibolini, the opinion of Adolfo Venturi was crucial (1890, p. 293). He recalled how ‘beautiful is the portrait thanks to the brush of Marco Meloni, which can be admired in the Galleria Borghese in Rome. In the Galleria Borghese catalogue, it is said that the painting does indeed represent St Francis; but wrongly, since the absence of the Stigmata and the presence instead of the characteristic symbols [...] fully justify our identification’ (A. Venturi 1893, p. 63; Gardner 1911, p. 195). Refutation would only come after the restoration work conducted by Vittorio Facchinetti in 1925, in which traces of the stigmata on the hands clearly emerged. A convincing opinion in support of Francia was expressed by Berenson (1907, p. 223), who steered Venturi’s opinion back into Francia’s orbit, assigning it to Giacomo Raibolini, with Roberto Longhi also later agreeing ([1928] 1967, I, p. 335, no. 57). After further endorsement (Berenson 1932 p. 209 and 1936 p. 179), the attribution to Francia was accepted by later critics (De Rinaldis 1939, p. 45; Della Pergola 1955, p. 38, no. 49). According to Calogero (cit.), the painting in the collection can be defined as ‘an excellent example of the turning point at which Francia embraced whole-heartedly Perugino’s influence at the turn of the century: an espousal that provided the right blend of optical clarity and gentleness, pushed to the point of excess’, thus drawing a close comparison between the figure of the Saint and the St Jerome in the Assumption of the Virgin in the Accademia Gallery. With regard to the dating of the work, the comparison drawn by Simonetta Stagni with the St Francis in the altarpiece painted by Francia, dated 1500, in the Pinacoteca di Bologna was of fundamental importance (Stagni 1986, pp. 2, 9, 13). This suggestion was endorsed by later critics (Negro, Roio, 1988, pp. 150-151).

Fabrizio Carinci