St Louis of France 1481 - 1502

Vittore Crivelli painted this panel of Saint Louis of France in the late fifteenth century using tempera and gold on wood. The figure's lavish garments communicate status and power. Note how the bishop’s mitre, cape, and staff are carefully embellished with gold leaf. The cape also has a band of images depicting other religious figures, perhaps other Franciscan saints. Crivelli worked in the region known as the Marches, on the eastern coast of Italy. The area was undergoing political fragmentation, and art became a tool for local elites, often ecclesiastics, to assert their authority through the patronage of artists like Crivelli. Looking closely at the details of the painting and researching the history of the Franciscan order in the Marches will reveal the powerful institutional forces at play in the creation of this image. Medieval and Renaissance art was rarely made for art’s sake; it served a social function.