Sassetta, 'The Wolf of Gubbio', 1437-44

In around 1220, Saint Francis of Assisi was living in Gubbio in Umbria, when a fierce wolf began attacking local livestock. It soon graduated to eating people, and would wait by the city gates and pounce on anyone foolish enough to step outside. No one seemed able to kill it, and the city was in a state of siege when Francis offered to go outside and negotiate with the beast. Although advised against this, he set out with a small band of followers to find the wolf’s lair.

On seeing the saint the wolf rushed at him, but Francis made the sign of the cross and spoke severely to it, at which point the wolf lay down at his feet. He rebuked the animal for attacking humans, but promised that, if it stopped terrorising the city, it would be forgiven and cared for. The wolf placed its right paw in the saint’s hand to seal the bargain, and followed him back to Gubbio. The people were astonished to see the saint and the now-tame wolf, but Francis explained their pact, and once again the wolf put its paw in his hand to signify its agreement. The wolf allegedly lived for another two years in the city, being fed by the grateful populace.

This is the fifth of eight paintings from the San Sepolcro Altarpiece, a large and magnificent polyptych painted for the Franciscan church of Borgo San Sepolcro, and installed on the high altar there in 1444. The back of the altarpiece showed Saint Francis in Glory surrounded by eight scenes from his life (seven are in our collection). This panel was in the top row, to the right of the main panel. Its landscape continues in Saint Francis before the Sultan, which was originally next to it.

This is a rarely depicted scene, and the only one represented on the San Sepolcro Altarpiece that is not in Francis‘ official biography, the Legenda Maior. Instead, the artist and his advisers followed the account in the late fourteenth-century Fioretti (’Little Flowers of St Francis‘). Sassetta has compressed the story somewhat and set it outside the walls of Gubbio. The wolf places its paw in the saint’s hand, watched by a crowd of townsfolk and another friar. To the left a notary writes down their agreement; on the right are the scattered bones and body parts of the wolf’s victims. Women watch from a safe distance, peeping between the battlements of the city gate. The presence of the notary is unexpected, and it was perhaps intended as a compliment to Francesco de’Larghi, the notary who did the paperwork for the altarpiece and oversaw payments for it.

How Sassetta depicted the various stories was affected by contemporary Franciscan doctrines. The wolf, a traditional symbol of avarice, is an allegory for the taming of worldly desires, a particularly important theme in the light of Observant (reformed) tendencies in the Franciscan Order. Francis himself was always shown, as here, with another friar as a companion: from 1336 all friars had to travel in pairs, to keep an eye on each other. The friar here has his hands tucked in his sleeves and his head covered, in accordance with the custom of the Order.

Technical investigation reveals that changes were made during the execution of this painting. Infrared reflectography has shown an incised perspective grid in the lower part of the painting, which seems to bear no relation to the scene as painted. This may suggest that a different composition was originally planned. The flight of birds was originally incised as a straight line, but eventually painted as a graceful curve.