The Church of Santa Caterina is enriched with a new work of art, an oil on linen canvas (200×150 cm) by the Macerata-born artist Maurizio Meldolesi. The canvas depicts Saint Francis in ecstasy, lifted by a cloud and tense with surprise and pain from the stigmata. It’s not difficult to recognize the painful pleasure of “Saint Teresa of Avila” (Gian Lorenzo Bernini) or “Ophelia” (John Everett Millais) who dies for love of Hamlet, like the “rich” Francis who dies to be reborn in Christ. It also inspires us to find references to other masters of the past, such as Giotto with “the demons,” Caravaggio with “the bite,” Rembrandt and Vermeer with “the environmental
chiaroscuro,” and invites us to learn about his story.
From Bonaventura di Bagnoregio’s “Legenda Maior” (1263), Meldolesi has identified seven episodes to highlight: the dream of the weapons, the prayer to the Crucifix, the expulsion of the devils, the ecstasy, the sermon to the birds, the death, and the receiving of the stigmata. “While praying on the side of Mount Verna, Blessed Francis saw Christ in the form of an evening cross; who impressed on his hands and feet, and also on his right hip, the stigmata of the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ himself.”
The dynamism of the composition revolves around this last episode: the divine light pierces and pushes away the dark clouds to imprint the wounds, beginning to shine on the figure from the top left. Essentially, the artist has succeeded in painting the figure of the Saint as if he wanted to convey to the viewer his participation in the pain of the stigmata, a true stimulus to prayer. The painting of the suffering Saint Francis was placed in the winter church of Santa Caterina, precisely, as Father Armando Pierucci stated, “between Fabriano’s two historic structures of suffering,” namely Santa Caterina Asp and Buona Novella. In the presence of the artist, who was applauded by those present, numerous faithful, and the Santa Cecilia Choral Group of Fabriano, Father Ferdinando Campana blessed a work of art that speaks of art and faith.
