St. Francis Delivers the Rule

The standing figure of St. Francis occupies the center of this panel like a supporting column. Against the gilded background, his simple brown habit assumes a lighter color than those of the congregation before him, as if he were holier than all. He delivers the rule of his order to the Franciscan brothers on the left and the sister order of the Poor Clares on the right.

This panel formed part of a polyptych by the young Colantonio belonging to the major Neapolitan Franciscan church, San Lorenzo. The altarpiece included Capodimonte’s St. Jerome in His Study, a watershed of fifteenth-century Neapolitan art painted in the Flemish style. The Spanish King of Naples, Alfonso V, commissioned the polyptych around 1445. His emblem is represented on the rajoletas, or ceramic floor tiles from Valencia, Spain.