Sandro Botticelli, 'Saint Francis of Assisi with Angels', about 1475-80

Saint Francis stands on a marble ledge against a golden background. He wears a hooded brown cloak tied with a knotted cord, the habit (uniform) of the religious order of friars he founded, the Franciscans. He embraces a Crucifix and gazes compassionately at the tiny figure of the crucified Christ. If you look closely you can see bright red blood on Christ’s feet and his white loin cloth, where it has dripped from the wound in his side.

The saint is surrounded on either side by angels playing musical instruments, their feet supported by small clouds. His pose is inspired by the legend that his meditation on Christ’s suffering was so intense that, during a vision of Christ on the Cross, he miraculously developed the wounds of the crucifixion, known as the stigmata. We can see them here on his hands and feet.

Saint Francis’s intense identification with the suffering of Christ led him to become known as the alter Christus (‘another Christ’). This empathetic devotion was the hallmark of Franciscan spirituality and it became popular among the ordinary citizens of Florence too. This picture was probably made for private worship, and for a Florentine citizen rather than a friar, whose commitment to a life of poverty would have ruled out owning such a precious object. By offering a heavenly vision of Saint Francis’s religious experience the painting encourages emulation of his piety and devotion.

The painting was once inscribed in Latin along the bottom with lines from the Franciscan hymn, the Decus Morum, followed by the date 1492. The inscription was removed in 1940 after scientific analysis revealed that it contained a pigment called Prussian Blue, which only came into use in the eighteenth century. The modern inscription may have been added to complement the image of the saint in worship – the Decus Morum was sung on the feast day of the stigmata on 17 September – or it might have been an attempt to reinforce an older, or original, inscription.

The picture was once thought to be by the Florentine artist Filippino Lippi, but cleaning and restoration in 2002 revealed that it was in fact very similar to works by Botticelli, Filippino’s teacher. It particularly resembles works from his early career, especially those made in the second half of the 1470s. The heart-shaped faces of the angels are typical of Botticelli’s work of this period; the way in which they are stacked up one behind the other to give the impression they are receding into the background is similar to how Botticelli painted crowds in the Adoration of the Kings, for example. These comparisons suggest that the date of 1492 following the inscription is not accurate and therefore also not original.

The painting is unusual for Botticelli, however: all the other examples of his work that show a single saint are fragments of something larger. The gold background is also unusual: in this period works with gold backgrounds were considered old-fashioned in Florence, although still popular in the nearby Tuscan city of Siena. The gold leaf has been incised with a sharp tool to create a diaper (diamond) pattern and then punched with a metal tool with six prongs. This tool might have been lost during the process as the lower part is punched with a five pronged punch. The incising and punching created a textured surface which would glimmer and sparkle in candlelight, intensifying the glory and mystery of the saint’s vision.