Page 70 - Vision & Ecstasy - Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione's St. Francis.

ROYAL COLLECTION TRUST / © HER MAJESTY QUEEN ELIZABETH II 2013
ROYAL COLLECTION TRUST / © HER MAJESTY QUEEN ELIZABETH II 2013

Fig. 28a G.B. CASTIGLIONE Fig. 28b G.B. CASTIGLIONE

St Francis receiving the Stigmata,The Royal St Francis receiving the Stigmata,The Royal

Collection,Windsor Castle. Collection,Windsor Castle.

no. 903969, Fig. 27), tending to discount any idea that it was preparatory, and five studies of the saint in attitudes
related to the postures in the altarpiece (904006-904007, Figs. 28a & b), to the present Saint Francis (903977
and 903978, Figs. 29a & b), and to a conventional Stigmatization reminiscent of Strozzi’s exaggerated gestures
of surprise (903980, Fig. 30).43 Whenever these variations arose and whatever their sequence, the present
painting is the transitional work in concept. It signals the expansion of Castiglione’s repertory from the patriarchal
journeys and bacchanalia to devotional subjects. It connects all the earlier, incantatory repetitions likeVan Dyck’s
Crucifixion and the serial images of Saint Francis by Strozzi, Assereto, and Cerano with this late production of
works on paper. And again in terms of operation, this Saint Francis helped set the stage for one more audacious

43. A. Blunt, The Drawings of G. B. Castiglione & Stefano della Bella in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen atWindsor Castle, London
1954, cat. nos. 194, 196, 197, 198, 199, and 195 respectively. On the oil study of the Immaculate Conception, inv. no. 903969,
see also Percy 1971, cat. no. 44. On a very close version of inv. no. 904007 in a Genoese private collection as well as on the
series, seeT. Standring in Genoa 1990, cat. no. 29 bis.

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