St. Francis of Assisi Receiving the Stigmata

Bicci di Lorenzo's Saint Francis of Assisi Receiving the Stigmata from around 1430 depicts the pivotal moment in Francis's mystical life when he received the wounds of Christ's crucifixion on his own body, the first Christian to experience this miraculous conformity to Christ's Passion. Bicci di Lorenzo was among the most prolific Florentine painters of the early Quattrocento, his workshop supplying altarpieces and devotional panels throughout Tuscany in a conservative manner that maintained late Gothic decorative richness while absorbing some elements of the new naturalism developed by Masaccio and his circle. His Saint Francis belongs to the extensive Franciscan iconographic tradition that had been developing since the saint's canonization in 1228, when painters first confronted the challenge of depicting his remarkable spiritual experience in visual terms.

The tempera and gold on wood demonstrates the conservative Florentine workshop tradition with careful gold-ground treatment and precise figural painting. The traditional iconography of Francis receiving the stigmata follows established Franciscan visual conventions.