For the first time, 60 works from the world's major museums reconstruct the artistic story of one of the most important authors of the thirteenth century. The exhibition is held on the occasion of the celebrations for the 800th anniversary of the imposition of the stigmata on Saint Francis.

After the great exhibition dedicated to Pietro Vannucci known as Perugino 500 years after his death, the National Gallery of Umbria in Perugia hosts, from 10 March to 9 June 2024, another prestigious initiative which will make people rediscover, as has never happened before, the figure of the Master of San Francesco, one of the most important artists of the thirteenth century, after Giunta Pisano and before Cimabue, with whom he can directly compare himself for the level of ideas and painting.

The retrospective, curated by Andrea De Marchi, Emanuele Zappasodi and Veruska Picchiarelli, which is held on the occasion of the celebrations for the 800th anniversary of the imposition of the stigmata on Saint Francis, presents, gathered together for the first time, 60 masterpieces from the most prestigious museum institutions, from the Louvre in Paris to the National Gallery in London, from the Metropolitan Museum in New York to the National Gallery in Washington.

From the National Gallery of Umbria, which preserves 60% of the works on wood by the Master of Saint Francis, the itinerary extends to the cycle with Stories of Christ and stories of Saint Francis executed by the painter in the lower church of the Basilica of Assisi, also in by virtue of the valorization agreement that links the Sacred Convent to the Perugian museum.

The thirteenth century was a century of grandiose social, economic and cultural upheavals. Umbria was the region that best knew how to absorb and transform into positive energy the shock caused by the birth of the mendicant orders, the Franciscan one in particular. It is no coincidence that Umbria and Assisi became the new hub in the European arts system, where some of the most singular pictorial works of the time were created; in this panorama, the mysterious figure of the Master of San Francesco stood out, a still anonymous author, so called from the panel with the effigy of the Saint painted on the same axis on which he died, preserved in Santa Maria degli Angeli and exceptionally exhibited in the Perugia exhibition .