The Madonna of Foligno

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The Madonna of Foligno: Raphael

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Art Type: Oil Painting
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Raphael Oil Painting - The Madonna of Foligno

Keywords: Madonna, Foligno

Work Overview: Madonna of Foligno
Artist Raphael
Year 1511
Type Oil on wood, transferred to canvas
Dimensions 320 cm × 194 cm (130 in × 76 in)
Location Pinacoteca Vaticana, Vatican City

The Madonna of Foligno is a painting by the Italian High Renaissance painter Raphael. First painted on wood panel, it was later transferred to canvas.

The painting was executed for Sigismondo de' Conti, chamberlain to Pope Julius II, in 1511. It was placed on a high altar of the church of Santa Maria in Aracoeli on Capitoline Hill (Italian: Campidoglio) in Rome,[1][2] where Sigismondo was buried in 1512.

It was moved by Anna Conti, a descendant of Sigismondi Conti, to the monastery of St. Anne in Foligno in 1565 and remained there for more than two centuries, hence the name.[1][2]

In 1799 it was carried to Paris, France by Napoleon. There, in 1802, the painting was transferred from panel to canvas by Hacquin and restored by Roser of Heidelberg.[1][2] A note was made by the restorer: "Rapporto dei cittadini Guijon Vincent Tannay e Berthollet sul ristauro dei quadri di Raffaello conosciuto sotto il nome di Madonna di Foligno." [3]

In 1815, after the Battle of Waterloo, it was returned to Italy, where it was placed in the room with the Transfiguration[1][2] in the Pinacoteca Vaticana of the Vatican Museum in the Vatican City.

The painting is a sacra conversazione, where holy figures seem to be in conversation and draw the audience into their discussion.[4] Rather than sitting under a canopy, of the Umbrian or Florentine style,[2] the Virgin is seated on clouds, embracing Jesus, while surrounded by angels. They look down upon Sigismonde de' Conti, kneeling in a red, fur lined cape. Conti is presented by St. Jerome on the right with his lion, appealing for the Virgin's protection. On the left are the kneeling St. Francis of Assisi and St. John the Baptist, who is standing and wearing a tunic of skins. As St. John points to Jesus, he clearly looks out to us, pulling us in, while St. Francis points to us and looks at the Christ Child. Between the men is an angel, linking the saints of earth to the seraph host of heaven. Behind them are the towers of Foligno.

Painted during Raphael's Roman period, it is a testament to his artist maturity, evidenced in the paintings composition, coloring and form.

Conti commissioned the painting to commemorate his survival of a shell that exploded near him during the Siege of Foligno, his home town. He credited his safety to heavenly intervention.

The work was commissioned in 1511 by Sigismondo de' Conti for the high altar of the church of S. Maria in Aracoeli in Rome. From here it passed in 1565 to the church of S. Anna at the Monastery of the Contesse in Foligno and, after its return from France, where it had been transferred in 1797 following the Treaty of Tolentino, it entered the collection of the Vatican Pinacoteca (1816).
Sigismondo de' Conti, a distinguished humanist of Foligno, is shown kneeling in prayer on the right: St Jerome, in the vestments of a cardinal, presents him to the Virgin, who is seated in glory with the Child Jesus. On the left St John the Baptist, dressed in animal skins, indicates the heavenly vision. Kneeling before this is St Francis, patron of the Minors, to whose church the picture was painted.
The painting was ordered by Sigismondo de' Conti out of thanksgiving to the Virgin for having saved his house in Foligno, that had been struck by lightning. The episode is recalled in the splendid landscape insertion in the background. The small angel in the centre of the composition holds a plaque without an inscription which was probably destined to recall the wish fulfilled by the Virgin.
The painting can be dated to between 1511 and 1512, in the period when Raphael was working in the Room of Heliodorus in the Vatican (Julius II's apartment).

The painting was executed for Sigismondo de' Conti in 1511-12. It represents the Madonna in Glory but it is usually called the Madonna of Foligno.

Raphael's pictorial research had been enriched by his solutions regarding the use of light in the Expulsion of Heliodorus and the Liberation of St Peter. These pictorial devices reappear in the Madonna of Foligno, now in the Vatican Museum. The Madonna and Child, borne by a cloud of angels and framed by an orange disk, dominate the group of saints below them, among whom is the donor. This group includes - from left to right - St John the Baptist, St Francis, Sigismondo de' Conti and St Jerome. A small angel at the centre of the composition holds a 'small plaque which was originally intended to carry the dedicatory inscription.

The painting was commissioned to commemorate a miracle in which the donor's house in Foligno was struck by lightning or - according to another version - was struck by a projectile during the siege of Foligno, although it was not damaged. The stormy atmosphere of the landscape background and the flash of lightning (or explosion) which strikes the Chigi Palace (visible at left) illustrate the legend. The strong characterization of the figures, the volumetric fullness of the putti and the refined chiaroscuro distinguish the panel (which was taken as loot by Napoleon's army in 1799 and returned in 1815) as a work of the mature artist.

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The Small Madonna of Foligno – which depicts the Virgin with the child Jesus, St. John the Baptist, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Jerome, the camerlengo to Pope Julius II, Sigismondo de’ Conti who commissioned the work, and an angel in the center – has spent many years in a private collection in Cordoba, Spain.

The scene is identical to that of the Madonna of Foligno and was probably a preliminary version of the famous Raphael’s painting, which is exhibited in the Vatican Pinacoteca.

Dr Rodríguez-Simón has combined advanced instrumental techniques with analytical methods to reliably attribute the painting to Raphael (April 6 or March 28, 1483 – April 6, 1520).

According to Dr Rodríguez-Simón, the Small Madonna of Foligno (93.5 x 66.5 cm) arrived in Cordoba from France in the late 19th century.

The work was transferred from wood to canvas in the second half of the 19th century. A preparation of several layers of lead white over a set of three canvases has been found. This corresponds to the way in which paintings were transferred from one support to another at that time in France.

The researcher discovered two hidden fragments of paper, stuck to the frame, which confirm that the change of support happened in France. The first is written in French, in iron-gall ink, and gives the date as 16 April and the year, 1888. The other is part of a page from a printed catalogue of art works to be sold through the Hotel Drouot auction house in Paris and dated in 1872.

Using infrared photography, Dr Rodríguez-Simón identified Raphael’s preliminary sketches for the painting, as well as a combination of different graphic techniques in the underdrawing.

“The practice of working with different drawing instruments, ranging from chalk to brush, has been found in many of Raphael’s works,” the scientist said.

Moreover, Dr Rodríguez-Simón found a direct correspondence between the underdrawing of the Virgin’s head in this painting and a drawing on paper in the British Museum, London, known as the Study for the head of the Virgin, proving that both were created by the hand of Raphael himself.

In the Small Madonna of Foligno, two letters decorate the cuff of the Virgin’s tunic: the capital letters R and U – the initials of Raffaello de Urbino.

“Raphael stamped a similar rubric in the decoration that is part of the brocade adorning the same cuff in the major work, held in the Vatican Pinacoteca, with the same theme,” Dr Rodríguez-Simón said.

Similarly, he has also discovered the first letters of the name Raffaello or Raphael and the year 1507, which have been incised, when the paint was fresh, in the flesh color of the Virgin’s right hand.

Infrared photography has also led to another discover of major importance: the existence of numbering on both the upper and right sides and short hairsbreadth lines all around the edge of the painting, about 2.9 cm apart.

“These graphics can be explained by the use of the method of squaring to transfer this composition to a larger scale, as shown by the number of squares and the fact that they are so small,” Dr Rodríguez-Simón said.

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The Madonna of Foligno portrays a Sacra Conversazione, a Holy Conversation, the Virgin Mary, seated on clouds and surrounded by angels, is holding baby Jesus and other holy figures (St. Jerome, St. Francis of Assisi, St. John the Baptist and Sigismondo de' Conti) seem to be in conversation, a conversation that excites the curiosity of the viewer who wants to be part of it.

Between the Saints there is an angel and behind them there are the towers of Foligno. The iconography in the painting was inspired by a story from the Legenda Aurea (Golden Legend): on Christmas Day, the Virgin and Child are said to have appeared to Augustus before a solar disk, surrounded by angels, and the emperor, refusing to be worshiped as a god, is said to have recognized the greatness of Jesus and consecrated the site of the appearance of the Virgin Mary.

The painting is one of many masterpieces drawn by Raphael, a major representative of the Italian High Renaissance. Dating back to 1511, the painting was executed for Sigismondo de' Conti, chamberlain to Pope Julius II, and it was first painted on a wood panel and later transferred to canvas.

Upon completion, the painting was in the church of Santa Maria in Aracoeli on Rome, where Sigismondo was buried in 1512. In 1565 it was moved by Anna Conti, a descendant of Sigismondo, to the monastery of St. Anne in the town of Foligno itself, and it remained there for more than two centuries... until the arrival of Napoleon (1799) who brought it to Paris. After the Battle of Waterloo, in 1815, the painting was returned to Italy and showcased in the Pinacoteca Vaticana.

Now after two centuries, Eni, Italy's leadingmultinational oil and gas company, has taken Raphael's masterpiece back to Foligno, precisely in the church of the monastery of St. Anne, its previous home.

Before its trip to Foligno, crowds were able to admire the masterpiece at Palazzo Marino, in Rome. 240.000 visitors stopped by to explore its many aspects, relating not only to the work itself, its painting technique, its conservation, and the extraordinary personality of the artist, but also to its history, closely tied with the territory.

The town of Foligno had the wish to have Raffaello' s masterpiece back even for just a short time. Now, Eni and the Vatican Museums have made this dream come true.

Eni has worked hard, in the past few years, to bring art to a wider public: the formula was first developed in 2008 as an opportunity for dialogue and exchange, with the main objective of exhibiting a single work and offering space for new interpretations. The idea is to do things differently, without having a classic exhibition but to display a masterpiece in a unique environment. Each presentation is also supported by several in-depth tools, aimed particularly at children who can learn a lot about and from art.

Thanks to Eni, in the past six years, over 1.2 million visitors had the opportunity of admiring masterpieces such as: Caravaggio’s The Conversion of Saint Paul (2008, over 160,000 visitors), Leonardo da Vinci’s Saint John the Baptist (2009, 180,000 visitors), Titian’s Woman with a Mirror (2010, over 190,000 visitors), Georges de La Tour’s Adoration of the Shepherds and Saint Joseph the Carpenter (2011, 210,000 visitors), and Canova’s Cupid and Psyche with Gérard’s Psyche and Amor (2012, 227,000 visitors).

All these masterpieces from centuries ago continue to enjoy surprising popularity, now, just like back in time, they bring travelers, pilgrims and visitors together in contemplation of their sublime beauty.

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