Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata

A powerful vision that Saint Francis experienced on Mount Alverna left him with the wounds of Christ's Crucifixion permanently marking his hands, feet, and chest. The dramatic physical transformation of the saint's body, which demonstrates the extraordinary depths of his faith, was a popular devotional theme in the Counter-Reformation. In the Carracci family workshop, ideas were passed around and reused. Here Agostino has based some of his meticulous landscape on a painting of another saint by his cousin Ludovico Carracci (1555-1619). Still, the result is original, especially in Agostino’s manner of showing Francis in ecstasy with his hands raised high to receive the stigmata. This pose would become a model of later generations of painters.