Madonna of Foligno

A man survives an explosion during a siege and asks Raphael to say thank you for him. The answer is a towering altarpiece of the Virgin on the clouds, with his hometown below.

The story behind the painting

Sigismondo de' Conti, chamberlain to Pope Julius II, commissioned this painting around 1511 to 1512 to give thanks for surviving a shell that exploded near him during the siege of Foligno, his hometown. He credited heaven with his safety. The picture stood on the high altar of Santa Maria in Aracoeli on the Capitoline Hill in Rome, the church where he was buried in 1512. In 1565 his descendant Anna Conti moved it to the monastery of Saint Anne in Foligno, where it stayed for over two centuries, hence its name.

What to look for

This is a sacra conversazione, holy figures in conversation. The Virgin sits on clouds, embracing the child, surrounded by angels. Below, Sigismondo kneels in a red, fur lined cape, presented by Saint Jerome with his lion. On the left Saint Francis kneels and John the Baptist stands in his tunic of skins. John points to Jesus but looks at us, while Francis points to us and looks at the child. Between them an angel holds a blank tablet. Behind are the towers of Foligno.

Meaning and intent

The painting shows Raphael's maturity in Rome, in its composition, colour and form. The angel's blank sign has invited explanations. The historian Massimo Polidoro says it may be empty because Sigismondo died before he could tell Raphael what thanks to write. He also notes that UFO websites have used the painting as evidence of a flying saucer, while he identifies Sigismondo's house and a fireball, and calls such readings a reinterpretation with modern European eyes.

Legacy

In 1799 Napoleon had the painting taken to Paris. There, in 1802, François Toussaint Hacquin transferred it from wood panel to canvas, and it was restored. After Waterloo, in 1815, it was returned to the Papal States and placed in the Pinacoteca Vaticana, where it hung in the same room as Raphael's Transfiguration. It measures about 308 by 198 cm. The restorer of 1802 left a written note on the work, a report on the restoration of the Raphael known as the Madonna di Foligno. Today the altarpiece made to thank heaven for one man's escape is seen by visitors to the Vatican Museums.