Full title | The Funeral of Saint Francis and Verification of the Stigmata |
---|---|
Artist | Sassetta |
Artist dates | active by 1427; died 1450 |
Series | San Sepolcro Altarpiece |
Date made | 1437-44 |
Medium and support | Egg tempera on poplar |
Dimensions | 88.4 x 53.5 cm |
Acquisition credit | Bought with contributions from the Art Fund, Benjamin Guinness and Lord Bearsted, 1934 |
Inventory number | NG4763 |
Location | Room 52 |
Art route(s) | A |
Collection | Main Collection |
Saint Francis of Assisi died on 4 October 1226, surrounded by his friars at the chapel of the Portiuncula, outside Assisi. Rather than in a tiny chapel, here the saint lies on a bier in front of the altar of a large pink and blue church, surrounded by friars, church officials and other witnesses.
This is the last in a series of eight scenes of the life of Saint Francis, which were depicted on the back of a complex altarpiece painted for the Franciscan church in the Tuscan town of Borgo San Sepolcro. Here, as elsewhere on this altarpiece, Sassetta has departed from the scripta, the written instructions given to him by the friars, which had simply asked him to depict the saint’s death. He also painted the verification of the stigmata (the wounds Christ received at the Crucifixion, which Francis also miraculously experienced). The change was perhaps prompted by a desire to portray Francis as a second Christ.
Saint Francis of Assisi died on 4 October 1226, surrounded by his friars at the chapel of the Portiuncula, outside Assisi. Rather than in a tiny chapel, here the saint lies on a bier in front of the altar of a large pink and blue church. At his feet a bishop reads the funeral service from a book held up by a young acolyte. On the left stands a young deacon holding a staff with a cross and a banner. One friar turns away and covers his face in grief; others hold long candles, with one lighting his from his neighbour’s flame. A small boy peers around the friar to see the saint’s body.
This is the last in a series of eight scenes of the life of Saint Francis, which were depicted on the back of a very large, complex altarpiece painted by Sassetta for the Franciscan church in the Tuscan town of Borgo San Sepolcro. The paintings on the back of the altarpiece were arranged in pairs; this one would have been in the bottom row on the right-hand side, next to the Mystic Marriage (Musée Condé, Chantilly).
A lady kneels in the foreground, pressing the dead man’s hand to her face. This is Iacopa dei Settesoli, a Roman matron and close friend of Saint Francis. When he felt death approaching, Francis asked for a letter to be written to her, asking – among other things – for her to bring his favourite cakes, but she miraculously arrived before the missive was sent and was present at his deathbed. She later bore witness to the stigmata (the wounds Christ received at the Crucifixion, which Francis also miraculously experienced). Behind the body, the doubting knight Jeronimo leans over and opens the slit in Francis’s habit to reveal the wound in his side.
Here as elsewhere Sassetta has departed from the scripta, the written instructions given to him by the friars, which had simply asked for the saint’s death. He also painted the verification of the stigmata, a change perhaps prompted by a desire to portray Francis as a second Christ by emphasising the stigmata. By the fifteenth century, however, the two were commonly conflated into a single scene.
Details of this painting suggest it was originally planned to include a standard element of Saint Francis’s death: the vision of the friar who saw the saint’s soul carried up to heaven. Unused incised lines for the architecture suggest that the vault was originally intended to be lower down, and indeed the friar on the left is gazing upwards, as if looking at something above him which is not there.
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San Sepolcro Altarpiece
These paintings were once part of one of the largest and most splendid altarpieces of the early Italian Renaissance. Made up of almost 60 panels, the double-sided altarpiece was painted for the high altar of San Francesco in Borgo San Sepolcro, a town near Arezzo. The back, which was seen primarily by the friars, showed Saint Francis in glory surrounded by eight scenes of his life, seven of which are in the National Gallery’s collection.
Unusually, surviving documents tell us a lot about how it was commissioned, constructed and paid for. The project was begun in 1426 but had foundered, and in September 1437 Sassetta took over. In early 1439 two friars visited him in Siena, bringing the scripta, a document stating what he was to depict. Although they provided the text, the artist provided the imagination: the scripta states that the friars, themselves artisans, and the painter together should decide on the details.
These paintings of episodes from the life of Saint Francis of Assisi come from the back of one of the largest and most splendid altarpieces of the early Italian Renaissance. Made up of almost 60 panels and measuring 6 m high by 5 m wide, this double-sided polyptych was painted for the high altar of San Francesco in Borgo San Sepolcro, a town near Arezzo.
Double-sided altarpieces were a particular feature of Franciscan churches in Umbria, where the friars sat in stalls behind the altarpiece. Taddeo di Bartolo had made a similar construction for San Francesco al Prato in Perugia in 1403, and several decades before one was painted for a church in the neighbouring town of Città di Castello. Unusually, surviving documents tell us a lot about how the San Sepolcro altarpiece was commissioned, constructed and paid for. In 1426 the operai (the group that oversaw the works and furnishing of the church) contracted a carpenter to carve a double-sided altarpiece. The young Piero della Francesca began working on it in 1432, but it was abandoned and a new start was made. In September 1437, Sassetta took over the project.
Two copies of the 1437 contract survive (one for the artist, one for the friars). In it Sassetta agreed make an identical wooden altarpiece and to paint it with stories chosen by the friars, using the finest pigments and the best of his skill and ingenuity, within four years. Rather than work at San Francesco, Sassetta chose to remain in Siena: he was to transport the completed sections to Borgo San Sepolcro and assemble them there. For this he was to be paid the enormous sum of 510 florins (the cost of about five respectable middle-class houses at that time).
The first installment was paid in February 1438. Nearly a year later two friars visited Sassetta, bringing the scripta, a document stating what he was to depict. Although they provided the text, the artist provided the imagination: the scripta states that the friars, themselves artisans, and the painter together should decide on the details. In general, they followed the narratives of Francis' official biography, Saint Bonaventure’s Legenda Maior, so closely that it’s tempting to think of them all studying the texts together.
On the front of the altarpiece, facing the nave, were the Virgin and Child with angels (Louvre, Paris), flanked by Saint John the Baptist and the Blessed Ranieri Rasini (Berenson Collection, Villa I Tatti, Settignano) on the left, and Saint John the Evangelist and Saint Anthony of Padua on the right (Louvre, Paris). The predella showed scenes of the Passion of Christ; other saints decorated the pinnacles. The back, seen primarily by the friars, showed Saint Francis in glory surrounded by eight scenes of his life, seven of which are in the National Gallery’s collection. The back-facing predella showed episodes from the life of Ranieri Rasini, a local holy man who was buried beneath the altar.
The altarpiece was installed on 2 June 1444, seven years after it was commissioned. We know from a nineteenth-century drawing that it was inscribed with the name of the artist and the date, and also the names of the two operai responsible, Christopher and Andrew. The eponymous saints for those involved in the commission appeared in the piers and pinnacles.
The altarpiece was dismantled during the Counter-Reformation in the late sixteenth century, and its panels dispersed after the monastery’s suppression in 1808–10 (28 survive in collections across the world).







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