In honor of the 800th anniversary of the death of St. Francis of Assisi Oct. 4, 1226, The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore is again exhibiting the most precious relic of the saint in America: the Saint Francis Missal, the rare 13th-century, hand-illuminated volume that scholars believe to be the very book that Francis and his followers consulted in 1208 to determine what God’s plan for them was to be.
Timed with the Jubilee Year of St. Francis declared for 2026 by Pope Leo XIV, “The exhibition presents visitors the rare opportunity to view this sacred object, which is rarely displayed due to its fragility, along with 18 additional objects that demonstrate St. Francis’ role as a figure in art history, including manuscripts, paintings, and works made of glass, ivory, and ceramic,” according to a Walters news release. Until Feb. 7, 2027, the missal will be opened to one of the three different passages that were crucial to the Franciscans’ vow to renounce earthly goods. The book was conserved in 2016-18.
Beyond the exhibit, a walk through the Walters galleries reveals a trove of artworks devoted to St. Francis of Assisi, including public altarpieces and private devotional works. In the Renaissance art galleries, visitors encounter three altarpieces that feature Francis, identifiable by his simple brown habit and the stigmata, the wounds of Christ.
In 1224, on the mountainside of La Verna in the Apennine Mountains of Italy, while Francis was meditating on the sufferings of Christ a seraph (a six-winged angel of the highest order) appeared to him in a vision of light. Afterward, he found his hands, feet and side marked with the stigmata.
As altarpieces, the paintings were displayed behind the altar for the congregation to contemplate during Mass, particularly as the celebrant raised the consecrated Eucharist. One that dates from c. 1410 is by a little-known painter named Olivuccio di Ciccarello who came from Camerino, a town northeast of Assisi. The central panel depicts the Madonna and Child with the words “Full of Grace” in the frame. Among the four surrounding saints is a handsome St. Francis holding a crucifix and pointing to the wound in his side, while with the other he fingers the pages of a missal as if signaling a favorite passage.
The other altarpiece from c. 1500 is by Cristoforo Caselli, who worked in Parma in northern Italy. Flanked by two other Franciscan saints, the nearly life-size Francis stands before a serene landscape on a pedestal, arms outstretched to display his wounds, as rose petals scatter at his feet.
Most altarpieces from the 1400s included a predella, a row of small narrative panels placed below the main image. When many altarpieces were dismantled following the liturgical reforms of the1500s, these little scenes — beloved for their storytelling and details of the natural world so dear to Francis of Assisi — have ended up in museum collections.
Two such predellas at the Walters are especially apt for the jubilee year.
One is the “Stigmatization of St. Francis,” by Marco Zoppo, made in 1471 for a church in Pesaro, Italy. Zoppo paints the miracle as witnessed by St. Francis’ companion, Brother Leo. To remind the viewer that Francis founded the Franciscan Order, the artist has turned his rustic chapel into a grand basilica.
Zoppo set the scene amid fantastical rock formations that seem to grow out of the ground, evoking the craggy rocks one finds when visiting the shrine at La Verna. He also found a unique way of depicting the seraphic vision, showing it as if we viewers were seeing from behind what Francis sees from the front.
Another predella, “The Funeral of St. Francis,” dates from around 1430. Perfect for the jubilee year, it merges the saint’s death in 1226 with his canonization in 1228, in a crowded scene that glows with vivid colors, contemporary fashion and lively expressions. The artist Bartolomeo di Tomaso hails from Foligno, a town near Assisi. The saint’s body lies on a bier surrounded by a mourning crowd while the wounds (which St. Francis had tried to keep secret) are verified. Fashionably dressed young men jostle behind the bier. People seeking a miraculous cure by touching the saint’s body approach from the front. To the right, the seated Pope Gregory IX writes the decree of canonization.
On a recent visit to the Walters, we found at least five other images of Francis beyond the Missal exhibit. Make this a family outing and see how many you can find?
Hamerman is a freelancer in Reston.
