Stories of St. Francis

The frescoes in the chapel recount the story from the life of St. Francis divided into episodes. It was based on Bonaventura da Bagnoregio's Legenda Maior, which Giotto had previously illustrated in the upper church in Assisi. The clarity of Franciscan preaching is reflected in the handling of the scenes illustrating the saint's life to ensure that everyone could grasp their meaning, At the same time, the idea was to draw parallels between the lives of Francis and Christ, starting with the Stigmatisation on the wall above the entrance. Inside the chapel we should read the narrative horizontally from left to right. The Renunciation of Worldly Goods is followed on the opposite wall by the Approval of the Rule, the Apparition at Arles by the Trial by Fire and the Death of St. Francis by the Vision of his Ascension. 

The Bardi frescoes should also be viewed from the centre of the chapel. In devising the upper scenes, Giotto allowed for the fact that they would be seen from below: witness the foreshortened building in the Renunciation. Compared to his earlier work in the aisles in Assisi or to the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, the artist changes the ratio between figure and setting here, introducing ploys that alter the spatial nature of his scenes. He also transcends the rigid expressions of the era by exploring his figures' mind-set, studying their expressions and gestures: the anger of the saint's father and cries of the boys being pulled by their hair in the Renunciation; the Saracens' fear of the showdown with Francis and of the Sultan's ensuing wrath in the Trial by Fire; or the grief and sentiment of the kneeling friars, the incredulity of the man probing the stigmata and the amazement of the friar watching the saint's soul being borne aloft into heaven in the Death.