The Miracle of St. Michael on Mt. Gargano

Domenico Beccafumi painted this Miracle of Saint Michael on Mount Gargano around 1519, depicting the apparition of the Archangel Michael at the Gargano sanctuary in southern Italy—one of the major pilgrimage sites in western Christendom. The Monte Gargano apparition, said to have occurred in 490 AD, was the founding miracle of the sanctuary that became one of the most important angel shrines in Europe. Beccafumi's treatment of the angelic apparition suited his particular gifts: the supernatural light effects, the dramatic contrast between earthly and divine, and the quality of visionary intensity that characterized his approach to miraculous subjects gave the medieval legend a distinctly sixteenth-century visual character. His proto-Mannerist palette and the atmospheric quality of his light created the appropriate sense of the miraculous breaking into ordinary experience.

Beccafumi's distinctive Mannerist style is evident in the iridescent color, elongated figure proportions, and the visionary quality of the supernatural apparition. His chromatic experiments and spatial ambiguities create an otherworldly atmosphere.