Saint Francis of Assisi receives the stigmata

Marcello Fogolino's Saint Francis of Assisi Receives the Stigmata, painted in 1518, depicts the defining mystical experience of the founder of the Franciscan order: the moment when the wounds of Christ appeared on Francis's body during a vision of a seraph on Mount La Verna in 1224. Fogolino was a northern Italian painter active primarily in Vicenza and Trent, whose work shows the influence of the Venetian school tempered by local traditions. The stigmatization of Francis was among the most theologically charged subjects in Italian religious painting, because it implied an almost unprecedented intimacy between a human being and the suffering of Christ. The work is now held in Palazzo Chiericati in Vicenza.

The dramatic contrast between the earthly landscape and the supernatural apparition of the seraph is handled through tonal contrast. Fogolino's northern Italian palette favors warm earth tones in the landscape, with the vision rendered in cooler, more ethereal light.