Francesco, un’altra storia

Thanks to the richness of the episodes it illustrates (more than twenty), the uniqueness of their choice – almost a challenge to the institution – and the complexity of its figurative discourse, the panel of the Bardi Chapel, preserved in Florence’s Santa Croce, portrays a Francis quite distant from the image we are used to seeing. It offers, in fact, a portrait of the saint in clear contrast with the more well-known one (of Bonaventure and Giotto) because it illustrates the more disturbing parts of Francis’ program, for example the peaceful conversion of the infidels, his disdain of wealth, his radical choice in favor of the poor and his helping the lepers.