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Further Considerations of the Holy Stigmata of St. Francis: Where Was Brother Leo?

Further Considerations of the Holy Stigmata of St. Francis: Where Was Brother Leo? FURTHER CONSIDERATIONS OF THE HOLY STIGMATA OF ST. FRANCIS: WHERE WAS BROTHER LEO? ROBERT KIELY Harvard University On the walls of the corridor leading to the tiny chapel on Mount La Verna, the damp and thickly wooded outcropping of rock where in the autumn of 1222 Saint Francis of Assisi received the Stigmata - the wounds of the crucified Christ on his own body - there are frescoes of the saint's life scarred with graffiti. The frescoes themselves are amateurish twentieth century imitations of a great medieval and Renaissance art form; the graffiti are unimaginative scratchings of initials and dates left by visitors in the dry paint and plaster. Similar markings can be seen throughout Italy on frescoes painted low enough for a hand to reach. What is remarkable in La Verna is the juxtaposition of the hall of graffiti and the place of the Stigmata, a scarred wall next to a shrine commemorating a wounded body. On the wall, the imprints appear random and without meaning; in the chapel, the imprints on the saint are recalled by Franciscans and millions of Christians as Godsent and endowed with an ultimate significance. In both cases, a border has been http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Religion and the Arts Brill

Further Considerations of the Holy Stigmata of St. Francis: Where Was Brother Leo?

Kiely, Robert
Religion and the Arts , Volume 3 (1): 20 – Jan 1, 1999
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Publisher
Brill
Copyright
© 1999 Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
ISSN
1079-9265
eISSN
1568-5292
DOI
10.1163/156852999X00024
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

FURTHER CONSIDERATIONS OF THE HOLY STIGMATA OF ST. FRANCIS: WHERE WAS BROTHER LEO? ROBERT KIELY Harvard University On the walls of the corridor leading to the tiny chapel on Mount La Verna, the damp and thickly wooded outcropping of rock where in the autumn of 1222 Saint Francis of Assisi received the Stigmata - the wounds of the crucified Christ on his own body - there are frescoes of the saint's life scarred with graffiti. The frescoes themselves are amateurish twentieth century imitations of a great medieval and Renaissance art form; the graffiti are unimaginative scratchings of initials and dates left by visitors in the dry paint and plaster. Similar markings can be seen throughout Italy on frescoes painted low enough for a hand to reach. What is remarkable in La Verna is the juxtaposition of the hall of graffiti and the place of the Stigmata, a scarred wall next to a shrine commemorating a wounded body. On the wall, the imprints appear random and without meaning; in the chapel, the imprints on the saint are recalled by Franciscans and millions of Christians as Godsent and endowed with an ultimate significance. In both cases, a border has been

Journal

Religion and the Arts – Brill

Published: Jan 1, 1999

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