Pinacoteca Room XIII

In Pietro da Cortona’s Vision of St Francis, Mary offers the child Jesus to the saint. The figures gather around that encounter, with gestures and colour carrying the relationship between them. The painting is a smaller version of an altarpiece Cortona made for a chapel in the church of the Annunziata in Arezzo around 1640–1641. It later came from the papal villa at Castel Gandolfo to the Pinacoteca, where it was exhibited in 1932. A smaller version can give a church composition another setting and another audience. Here, you can study the meeting of Mary, the child and Francis as a painting in its own right. Start with the figure receiving the child, then follow the direction of the arms between them.