The Miracles of St Bernardine of Siena

During the Jubilee year of 1450, Pope Nicholas V canonized the Franciscan St Bernardine (Bernardino) of Siena (1380-1444), who had died six years earlier, and whose feast is kept today. This was an unusually quick process for the era, especially considering how varied the Saint’s career had been; he had preached all over Italy, performed countless miracles, produced a large body of writings, and served as the general of the reformed branch of his order, known as the Strict Observance, or “Osservanza” in Italian. The revised Butler’s Lives of the Saints tells a funny story regarding his process, in reference to one of his contemporaries, Thomas of Florence, a collaborator in the reform. Thomas died in 1447, and many within the order wished that his cause for canonization might be joined to Bernardine’s. But since this would certainly have delayed the latter, St John of Capistrano went to Thomas’ tomb (which was in the order’s church in Rieti) and ordered him in the name of holy obedience to stop performing miracles until Bernardine had been canonized. This did in fact happen, and Thomas remains a blessed.

St Bernardine of Siena, 1450-60, by the Sienese painter Sano di Pietro.

St Bernardine is especially well known for promoting devotion to the Holy Name of Jesus. In his time, the upper two-thirds of Italy (basically everything north of the kingdom of Naples) was divided into many small states, which were very often at war with each other, and just as often rent by civil wars. Bernardine was extraordinarily successful in bringing peace to and between these states by preaching on the Holy Name, and would usually end his sermons by holding up a painted tablet with an IHS monogram on it, surrounded by the sun. (Monograms of this sort can still be seen to this day on the outside of public buildings all over Italy.) In many places, there was no church large enough to accommodate the crowds that gathered to hear him, and so he had to preach in the public squares, which is all the more remarkable when one considers that (as is often seen in paintings of him, including the one above) he had lost all his teeth.

The IHS monogram on the façade of the city hall of St Bernardine’s native city. Image from Wikimedia Commons, © José Luiz Bernardes Ribeiro, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of the places that had benefitted very greatly from Bernardine’s services as a peacemaker, and which nourished a great devotion to him, was the little Umbrian city of Perugia, the long-time rival of St Francis’ native place, Assisi. (It was during one of the frequent little wars with Perugia that Francis was captured and imprisoned, leading to his conversion and embrace of holy poverty.) As the Jubilee of 1475 approached, the Franciscan friars of Perugia commissioned a set of paintings of his miracles, which were made to be mounted on two large doors that covered a statue of the Saint in a small but very beautiful oratory dedicated to him. These panels are now displayed in the National Gallery of Umbria in Perugia, one of the best museums in all of Italy.

The oratory of St Bernardine in Perugia, built in 1452, only two years after his canonization. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by AliasXX00, CC BY-SA 4.0)

The group of painters who produced the panels is collectively referred to as “the workshop of 1473”, and includes two particularly famous names. One is Pietro Vannucci, by far the best known and most successful artist in the city, and therefore usually just called “Perugino – the man from Perugia.” (1448 ca. – 1523) The other is his assistant Bernardino di Betto Betti, who was generally known by the nickname “Pinturicchio – tiny little painter”, from his unusually small stature. (Born in Perugia ca. 1452; died in Siena, 1513.)

One of Piero della Francesca’s most famous paintings, The Flagellation of Christ, 1459-60. Notice how the composition is dominated by the architectural elements, as is also the case in the paintings shown below.

An interesting aspect of the project is how much it evidently owes to the style of Piero della Francesca (1415 ca. – 1492), their almost-fellow Umbrian. (Almost, because his native place is in the modern region of Tuscany, but borders on Umbria.) In six of the eight panels, the scene is either indoors or taking place in front of a building, and the architecture dominates the image; in the remaining two, roughly two-thirds of the scene is sky and countryside. The colors are bright, and the human figures cast shadows, but just barely. Pinturicchio had originally been trained as a miniaturist, doing very small images for the illustration of devotional books, and brought his training for finely drawn detail into the style of Perugino’s workshop; this is evident in the trees and the elaborate decorations on the buildings. (All images from Wikimedia Commons by Sailko, CC BY-SA 3.0, or public domain)

St Bernardine heals a young girl who suffers from an ulcer. (Perugino) The large structure that provides the backdrop is an idealized restoration of the arch of Titus in the Roman Forum, and partly reproduces the inscription on it.

St Bernardine raises up a young man whom he finds dead under a tree as he is traveling to Verona. (Perugino) The countryside shown in the background is very much like that of Umbria, but notice how the artist introduces the rather exotic looking and impossibly balanced cliff structure for contrast.

In the foreground of this panel, a young man named Giovan Antonio Tornaro is attacked and wounded in public, a common enough occurrence at the time. Within the building on the left, St Bernardine appears to him at night and heals him; the inside of the room is black, the artist’s concession to the facts of the story.

St Bernardine raises back to life a child born dead. Here, the architectural elements have almost completely taken over; the story is pushed into the back and occupies very little of the panel. Much like Piero della Francesca, the artist (Sante di Apollonio di Celandro) is very concerned that we should notice his mastery of perspective.

He heals a young man wounded by a bull; again, the architectural elements predominate over the story.

The last three panels (as I have arranged them) are posthumous miracles: the healing of a man badly injured by a shovel. The scene takes place within the courtyard of a church; through the door and windows, we see an interesting but improbable arrangement of columns under the dome.

St Bernardine appears to free a prisoner. (Perugino)

Another appearance to heal a blind man. (Perugino and Pinturicchio)

The museum of the cathedral of Siena has two panels by Sano di Pietro which show St Bernardine preaching in his native city. (Both images from Wikimedia Commons by Miguel Hermoso Cuesta, CC BY-SA 4.0). One is set in front of the basilica of St Francis, the façade of which is still incomplete...
 

and the other in the Piazza del Campo, the great plaza in front of the city hall building.