The Chapel of St Francis of Assisi: the last chapel of the right-hand nave originally bore the title of St Bonaventure, and was entirely frescoed by Girolamo Nanni, a Roman mannerist nicknamed ‘little and good’, with stories of the saint and those of the Poverello of Assisi. A memory of the ancient dedication can still be seen in the altar painting depicting both saints. The renovation of the decoration was carried out several times between the middle and the end of the 18th century. In the sub-arch and vault of the chapel, frescoes with the Stories of St Francis can be seen. On the side walls are two canvases by the Franciscan Alberigo Clemente Carlini with The Death of St. Francis and St. Francis Receives the Stigmata, datable to the third quarter of the 18th century. Some sources mention that this artist also painted a canvas for the altar of the chapel, now lost. The altarpiece on the altar today represents St. Francis Appears to St. Bonaventure. It is a work dated 1796 and signed Giovan Domenico Fiorentini, a Roman artist of good skill active in the last decade of the 18th century. Of late Baroque taste, the canvas shows the founder of the Order as he appears in vision to Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, intent on composing the biography of the Assisate.

Chiudi