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Giorgio Vasari’s The LA Holy Family with Saint Francis: New Iconographic Observations
Liana De Girolami Cheney
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DOI:10.17265/2328-2177/2026.10.010
UMASS, Lowell, USA
Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574), a celebrated painter, architect, and author, was commissioned multiple times to portray Saint Francis of Assisi. Vasari employed vibrant, atmospheric colors characteristic of Mannerism to emphasize the spiritual importance of Saint Francis’s presence in his works, offering a new perspective on piety that values humility and devotion. These paintings emphasize both the human and the sacred qualities of Saint Francis, depicting him without heroic glamor. Vasari produced two main types of religious images of Saint Francis. The first is narrative, portraying a specific event from Saint Francis’s life, such as the miraculous moment of stigmatization in Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata (1548, oil on canvas), located in the Church of San Francesco in Rimini. The second is devotional, represented by works such as The Marian Family with San Francis and Pope San Sylvester for the Church of San Francesco at Castiglion Fiorentino (1548, oil on panel); The Holy Family with Saint Francis (1542-1544, oil on canvas), now at the Davis Museum of Art, Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA; and The Holy Family with Saint Francis (1541, oil on canvas), now at the County Museum of Art of Los Angeles, CA (Fig. A). This last painting serves as the primary subject of this scholarly investigation, which examines its distinctive landscape and classical and Christian iconography. The painting features the symbolism of evergreen foliage, including ivy, fig trees, fir trees, and myrtle within both natural and mystical landscapes. Additionally, the painting depicts books held by sanctified figures that reference the Bible, a crib associated with the birth of Christ as a Nativity, and a cross that signifies Christ’s Crucifixion and stigmata while also symbolizing Christian salvation.
Giorgio Vasari, Saint Francis, Saint Joseph, classical architectural symbolism, Christian iconography, devotional art, holy books, crib, cross, landscape, foliage, trees
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