Bellini's St. Francis in the Desert

New volume in the Frick Diptych series pairs a contribution by best-selling author André Aciman with an essay by Xavier F. Salomon, both offering insights on one of the most remarkable and enigmatic Renaissance masterpieces.

Giovanni Bellini’s St. Francis in the Desert has inspired generations of visitors to The Frick Collection.

Commissioned ca 1475-80 by the Venetian nobleman Giovanni Michiel, probably as a devotional piece, the painting later entered the collection of the prominent aristocrat Taddeo Contarini. Purchased by Henry Clay Frick in 1915 it has hung in his mansion (now the museum) most of the last century.

This monumental panel painting is one of the Frick’s most renowned masterpieces and is considered by many to be the most important Renaissance painting in America. It portrays Francis of Assisi, the medieval Christian saint who renounced earthly riches to embrace a humble existence of poverty, prayer, and obedience to the Gospels. Bellini has imagined Francis alone in a mountainous wilderness, stepping forward from his simple shelter into a golden light that seems to transfigure him spiritually. For centuries, viewers have puzzled over the work’s meaning—seeking explanations in a variety of pictorial and textual sources.

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