Saint Bernardino 1469 - 1479

Curator: Here we have Benvenuto di Giovanni's "Saint Bernardino," an oil painting dating from about 1469 to 1479, now housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. What's your initial reaction to this piece? Editor: Austere. The color palette is quite restrained, save for the halo and what he’s holding. There’s a gravity, an almost unsettling calm radiating from the figure. Curator: The calm is Bernardino himself, radiating from the panel. The gold ground and decorative elements, while rich, conform to the Sienese School style—though those wings make it seem less flat. Tell me more about what you make of what he is holding? Editor: Yes! Centrally positioned is that panel with 'IHS', framed so conspicuously; it seizes immediate visual attention, effectively disrupting any possible illusionism to convey an intentional message... Curator: Absolutely. The 'IHS' is a christogram, a monogram for the name of Jesus, surrounded by the sun's rays. Bernardino popularized this symbol and used it to replace family emblems on buildings in Siena. It represented divine peace supplanting factional conflict. Editor: Fascinating. The politics of imagery—quite literally replacing divisive symbols with one promoting unity. So, how effective was this strategy in, say, shaping public perception or consolidating religious authority? Did this visual replacement translate into tangible socio-political change? Curator: Historical accounts suggest it was incredibly impactful. His sermons coupled with the image of IHS contributed to social reform. These replaced the emblems of the Guelphs and Ghibellines that tore Italian society at that time. Editor: It's an astute understanding of visual persuasion. It is using popular culture of the time, in what almost feels like public art, to mediate discourse around factional divides. Looking at it today, knowing its original public, who had just seen political rivalry symbolically overwritten... the stakes of representation must have seemed pretty clear back then. Curator: And the painting memorializes that moment, making sure we too are conscious of what symbols do to groups, and of one of the great peacemakers. Editor: I see that peace extending beyond Siena: today it is for all, by freezing for a moment, the transition from civil violence into a sort of quiet, collected repose—very skillfully I might add! Curator: Yes, Benvenuto manages a timeless and salient effect, rendering Bernardino and the 'IHS' a historical yet eternal appeal to unity.