carlo franza

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Carlo Franza

The mystery of the stigmata in art

The earlier beatification of Father Padre Pio, the holy friar of our times, the last of whom received stigmata, reintroduces the topic of the stigmata, not only among the church of believers, but also in that iconography of time and history that is in the art of the great artists having wanted to recall figures and moments of faith.
All has its origin with the Christian age when Christ rose from the dead after three days from that sepulchre garrisoned by roman and Judaic guards.
Maria of Magdala that is Magdalene was the first woman met by Jesus after rising from dead. And Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didimo, that means twin, was not with the Apostles when Christ appeared to them and did not believe to their tales. Eight days after the disciples were again at home and with them there was also Thomas. Jesus came and stayed with them and talking to Thomas he said: “Put your finger here and look at my hands; held out your hand and touch my chest and don't be unbeliever any more but believer “.
Another apparition is that occurred to Paul of Tarso, dazzled by a shining light touching his heart and inviting him to be converted, on the way to Damascus, immortalised in the history of art by that very famous canvas entitled “The conversion of Saint Paul “ one of the most beautiful of Caravaggio (Fig. 3) (nick-name of the Italian painter Michelangelo Merisi, 1573-1610).
Stigmata, a term coming from the Greek “stigmé”, meaning mark. And nevertheless St. Paul can be considered the first one to receive stigmata of the history, if in a “Letter to the Galati” of his (6,17) it is written: “Don't bother me: I bring on my body the marks of Christ”.
It seems that the stigmatized of history have been three hundreds, some of them very few known, other instead becoming famous and saints. Some religious, others laymen, but all had the mark or the marks of Christ, the wounds on the hands and feet and chest, apt to be the mark of the choice carried out among a thousand. Rather it must be said that before St. Francis, who was the real first stigmatised in 1224, nobody have ever felt over one's own body the visible mark of God, wounds and blood were due to deep penance supplied, to punishments inflicted to one's own body by the means of cilice and others. Stigmata are a typically Christian and mainly catholic foundation, since any other religion, neither the orthodoxy, acknowledges them and raises them to creed. Art has receipted along centuries and in times the crucifixion.
Think about the “Dead Christ “ by Mantegna (Fig. 1) at the picture gallery of Brera at Milan, where the pain and the humanity, the suffering body of the wounded Christ comforts by a sort of high mysticism. How many paintings do we have in art that give meaningfulness to St. Francis of Assisi? A lot. It were enough to see the “St. Francis receives the stigmata “ (Fig. 2) by Giovan Francesco Barbieri called the Guercino (Cento, Ferrara 1591- Bologna 1666) or the “St. Francis receives the stigmata “ by Gentile from Fabriano. Francis of Assisi saw impressed over his body the wounds of Christ, when the vision disappeared. If St. Francis of Assisi was the first, Father Pio from Pietralcina, as the founder of his order, received the marks of the Passion over hands, feet and chest; on August 5th 1918 he received the transreverberation of heart, on September 20th the stigmata. Father Pio underwent several medical examinations by the greatest luminaries of medicine, nobody really succeeded in making head or tail of it or giving an explanation. The wounds bled for all his live, and if cured they did not heal, neither happened the necrosis, and any theory about it was upset by the scent those wounds emanated. Our earlier saint was immortalised by many contemporaneous artists, Salvatore Fiume is one of them, but Father Pio is so close to our times that many artist, a very lot of them have approached him, looked at his miraculous marks close to. Professor Pierluigi Baima Bollone who is the director of the Institute of Forensic Medicine at the Hospital of Gradenigo of Turin and director of the international centre of studies about Holy Shroud has examined all the neurovegetative aspects, including the “purpura”, the “dermatitis”, and even him has concluded, as before with the Holy Shroud wrapping Christ, that those marks slipped the comprehension of the medical science.
St. Theresa of Avila received not the wounds in hands and feet, but the so-called “assault of the Cherub “ (as St. Francis) also called “transreverberation “ that is the visit of an angel that pierced his heart.
This way it appears in the beautiful painting by Peter Van Lindt entitled “Transit of St. Teresa of Avila”.A saint of stigmata was also St. Frances Roman, a great lady, who scarified her vocation for marriage and leaded an ascetic life. St. Rita from Cascia, for example, received a variant of stigmata, she was enraptured and a thorn detached from the crown of Christ and stuck in her brow, and the wound never healed.
St. Catherine from Siena received the stigmata in 1630 and a Dominican pope allowed the order the saint belonged to a day in honour of the received stigmata. She imitated Christ in life and dead: she died when she was 33 years old.
A very beautiful “Ancona of the stigmata of St. Catherine “ by Domenico Beccafumi (Fig. 4) , pictures her in the act of the miracle that later was object of a enduring controversy by Church and special between the Franciscan and Dominicans Order.