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Giotto, St. Francis Receiving the Stigmata

Giotto di Bondone, St. Francis of Assisi Receiving the Stigmata with predella scenes of the Dream of Innocent III, The Pope Approving the Rule of the Order, and St. Francis Preaching to the Birds, c. 1295-1300 (originally, Church of San Francesco, Pisa), tempera and gold on panel, 3.13 x 1.63 m, original frame inscribed: "OPUS IOCTI FIORETINI.". Speakers: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker. Created by Beth Harris and Steven Zucker.

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  • female robot grace style avatar for user Cassandra Hamilton
    What is a monk? At the Dominicans are mentioned. Who were/are they?
    (12 votes)
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  • aqualine ultimate style avatar for user Pipob Puthipiroj
    After looking up the definition of "stigmata", I found that the stigmata were the wounds on the body of Jesus after the crucifixion. Why were those wounds considered important? Shouldn't those wounds be a bad thing, and if it was a bad thing, why does St. Francis "receive" the stigmata?
    (4 votes)
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  • female robot grace style avatar for user divaCassandra1
    What are the vows of the Franciscan order? Who is the current head of the order and what do they do today?
    (3 votes)
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  • blobby green style avatar for user Ancathe Steen
    What is the black part around Christ? It looks like 6 wings. Why is it painted like that?
    To have a closer look: http://www.flickr.com/photos/profzucker/5718444547/in/set-72157626463793206
    (4 votes)
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  • old spice man green style avatar for user Emerson Zollos
    I don't think they defined the final bottom panel correctly. What he is doing is feeding a "flock" of birds. Perhaps what they has is somewhat true however, the panels show a progression.

    1st panel) St Francis rebuild/provides a foundation for a falling church.

    2nd panel) Those in charge recognize his Godly actions and reward him in kind understanding that he is acting for God.

    3rd panel) Francis "feeds" the "flock" of birds. . . Jesus referred to his followers as his flock (in relation to sheep), I think this is simply Giotto letting a bit of his genius through. The final panel represents Francis bringing the word of God (feeding) to the common Christian (the flock).

    Agree? Disagree? Why?
    (3 votes)
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    • leaf blue style avatar for user Ellen B Cutler
      The bottom panel is called a "predella." Here is has three sections, each showing something important about Francis, who he was, what he did. Yes, there is a famous story of Francis preaching to the wild creatures. And no, episodes shown in a predella or in other parts of an altarpiece, do not have to be in chronological order. What matters is not the factual story they tell as much as the spiritual message they emphasize.
      (4 votes)
  • piceratops ultimate style avatar for user Papi
    Is there any significance of the marks of Christ being transferred to St. Francis in opposite form? I mean, the lines from Christ's right hand correspond to St. Francis' left hand and like manner with the other hand and both feet. If the two were standing facing each other and they just reached forward, the opposite hands and feet would correspond to each other. I just wonder about this because the commentators seem to place importance on every little detail.
    (3 votes)
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    • leaf blue style avatar for user Ellen B Cutler
      I think this is an aspect of naturalism. Giotto might have envisioned the transfer of the stigmata--a sign of God's great love for and approval of Francis--as a sort of embrace. Face to face, as you correctly point out, right hand would have grasped left hand and so one. Giotto, in the earliest days of the Renaissance, was expressing a medieval sense of magic and spirituality and a "modern" sense of the real world.
      (3 votes)
  • old spice man green style avatar for user Petar Poznić
    What does those lines, like wires, represents?
    (2 votes)
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  • leaf blue style avatar for user ozyo the unfunny
    The work of jocti fioretini
    (2 votes)
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  • piceratops ultimate style avatar for user Ari Mendelson
    Most of the pictures of St. Francis that I've seen look quite similar to one another in appearance. Can we be reasonably sure that the likeness of this 12th-13th century man has been captured at least somewhat accurately? Were at least some of the depictions of him painted from life?
    (1 vote)
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    • duskpin ultimate style avatar for user magda.prochniak
      Not necessarily. There were conventions, which were becoming common and reproduced in many icons/paintings. That refers especially to actual icons, but also the paintings influenced by Byzantine tradition was often reproduced in the same way. Look at the Christ, we know (for geographical reasons), he couldn't look like he was depicted, what is more, in the early Christianity we see him in a more classsical way (for example, beardless), but generally looking at the traditional Europan painting, you don't rather doubt that and when you look at Christ. St Francis also was depicted in some way (which could, but didn't have to bear some resemblance to the actual appearance of him), and artists used these conventions to not confuse the viewer, who had to know, whom he/she is looking at.
      (2 votes)
  • female robot grace style avatar for user EshesKhayil
    why do franciscan monks wear their hair that way?
    (4 votes)
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    • piceratops ultimate style avatar for user Nadiejda
      It's the regular "haircut" of monks : the tonsure

      In the Latin or Western Rite of the Catholic Church, "first tonsure" was, in medieval times, and generally through 1972, the rite of inducting someone into the clergy and qualifying him for the civil benefits once enjoyed by clerics. Tonsure was a prerequisite for receiving the minor and major orders. Failing to maintain tonsure was the equivalent of attempting to abandon one's clerical state, and in the 1917 Code of Canon Law, any cleric in minor orders (or simply tonsured) who did not resume the tonsure within a month after being warned by his Ordinary, lost the clerical state. Over time, the appearance of tonsure varied, ending up for non-monastic clergy as generally consisting of a symbolic cutting of a few tufts of hair at first tonsure in the Sign of the Cross and in wearing a bare spot on the back of the head which varied according to the degree of orders. It was not supposed to be less than the size of a communicant's host, even for a tonsuratus, someone simply tonsured, and the approximate size for a priest's tonsure was the size of a priest's host. Countries that were not Catholic had exceptions to this rule, especially in the English-speaking world. In England and America, for example, the bare spot was dispensed with, likely because of the persecutions that could arise from being a part of the Catholic clergy, but the ceremonious cutting of the hair in the first clerical tonsure was always required. In accordance with Pope Paul VI's motu proprio Ministeria quaedam of 15 August 1972, "first tonsure is no longer conferred".

      Monastic Tonsure

      Apart from this general clerical tonsure, some Western Rite monastic orders, for example Carthusians and Trappists, employed a very full version of tonsure, shaving the head entirely bald and keeping only a narrow ring of short hair, sometimes called "the monastic crown" (see "Roman tonsure", above), from the time of entrance into the monastic novitiate for all monks, whether destined for service as priests or brothers.


      Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonsure
      (8 votes)

Video transcript

(piano playing) Dr. Zucker: We're in the Louve and we're looking at a large altar panel by Giotto of St. Francis. It's a really spectacular painting. Dr. Harris: It is, it shows St. Francis receiving the Stigmata from Christ who appeared to him in the form of a Seraphim. What's striking is that this is not St. Francis in a very iconic frontal way. Dr. Zucker: As we might have expected in a more Medieval tradition. Dr. Harris: Exactly. Instead Francis is kneeling, he's in a naturalistic landscape or at the beginnings, we could say, of a naturalistic landscape. As he receives the stigmata he looks up in wonder and awe and confusion, and even some anxiety, I think. Dr. Zucker: A little fear there, right? Dr. Harris: Yeah. Dr. Zucker: But they are very human emotions. It's really an expression of, you're right, not an eternal iconic image, but rather of a moment of a man responding. Dr. Harris: And his body is rendered naturalistically, too. We have modeling, so we see the folds in the drapery, we see his left knee, his right knee folded under him, the modeling in his hands where we see the stigmata, modeling in his face. So he really seems like this folky three dimensional presence, really different from the flat, transcendent figures of only a little bit earlier. Dr. Zucker: And actually other artists that are still painting. I want to go back to that point you made a moment ago of the naturalistic landscape because this is certainly not naturalism as we would expect now in the 21st Century, but it is, at the very beginning of the 14th or at the very end of the 13th Century, quite an extraordinary innovation to place this really physical figure as you had described him in an environment with trees, with mountain. Dr. Harris: Clearly his scale doesn't match the building and the trees, but there's an effort here by Giotto to place him on earth, not just in a heavenly space. Dr. Zucker: We see this extraordinary gold filled background, the light of Heaven pours down and we see that literally in the divine rays that go from the Seraphim from Christ down to Francis, down to his feet, to his hands and to the wound in his side; this gift from Heaven for his faithfulness. It's important to remember that Francis was a mendicant, a beggar, that he'd given up his worldly possessions and like the Dominican's, the Franciscan's would renounce worldly possessions in honor of Christ. Initially there are some reports that the church was not sure that it wanted to accept St. Francis' ideas. The predella below is important because it shows very much the acceptance of Francis. Dr. Harris: So, we have these three scenes below in the predella showing Pope Innocent III vision of Francis supporting a church, the next of blessing that order of the followers of St. Francis, the Franciscan's and then St. Francis preaching to the birds. Dr. Zucker: Those are all really interesting stories. This dream of the Pope, this great miracle in which he dreamt that Francis was not only supporting a church, but was supporting a church that was falling down. It's crucial allegory, of course, or metaphor. The acceptance of Francis, this central scene, very, very important; literally the embrace of the church to this mendicant order. Dr. Harris: Legitimizing. Dr. Zucker: That's right, absolutely legitimizing and if you think about it for a moment, the mendicant's did represent a kind of threat. The church was a very wealthy institution, it was a very powerful institution, and here were these followers of Christ saying, Christ preached poverty, I'm taking that on. For the church to embrace that was a very important step. Then, of course, on the right this relationship between Francis and nature. Francis living in the desert or living in the wilderness having this direct relationship with all of God's creation is placed here, One of the reasons that Francis is often linked to sort of ecological movements and often seen a patron of nature. Dr. Harris: I love the way he reaches out toward the animals, the way that the figures are it's very stark against that gold background. So there's this Heavenly realm, but simultaneously in an earthly realm. It seems to me that Giotto has united both. Dr. Zucker: There's a simplicity to Giotto's work that includes a kind of emotional directness that I think has made his work seem incredibly authentic for many, many years. Artists are constantly looking back to the so called Italian Primitives for that sort of direct vision and here we have it at it's most beautiful. (piano playing)