Francesco Vanni

This painting by Francesco Vanni, a leading Sienese artist in the late 1500s, depicts the Virgin Mary’s miraculous appearance to Saint Francis of Assisi. As he embraces the infant Jesus, his older companion has fallen asleep while meditating on a skull, a symbol of mortality. Commissioned by the Italian Cardinal Buonviso Buonvisi, the canvas was offered to the monastery of the Cordeliers de l’Observance in Lyon, France, where it hung in the Chapelle des Lucquois, reputedly designed by Michelangelo. The church was endowed by merchant bankers from the Italian city of Lucca who had contributed to Lyon’s eminence as a center of trade.