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New volume in the Frick Diptych series pairs a contribution by best-selling author André Aciman with an absorbing essay by Xavier F. Salomon.
Giovanni Bellini’s St. Francis in the Desert is a masterpiece of Venetian Renaissance art that has inspired generations of visitors to The Frick Collection. The painting was commissioned by the Venetian nobleman Giovanni Michiel, probably as a devotional piece for his collection. By 1525, it had entered the collection of the prominent aristocrat Taddeo Contarini. The panel most likely depicts one of the key scenes from the iconography of St. Francis of Assisi (ca. 1181–1226), the moment when he received the wounds of the Crucifixion (stigmata) inflicted on Christ during the Passion. This is said to have occurred in the summer of 1224, while the saint was at La Verna, a site in the Apennine Mountains of Italy. Bellini shows St. Francis in contemplation, standing in a large and beautiful landscape. The palms of his hands display the wounds, while the landscape and animals around him highlight his close relationship with the natural world.
Xavier F. Salomon is director of the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum and the former deputy director and Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator of The Frick Collection. He lives in Portugal.