Allegory of Monastic Life

This picture has long been called the Thebaid, after the Egyptian desert near Thebes where the first Christian hermits lived. The saints in it tell another story. In one corner the Virgin appears to Bernard of Clairvaux, a 12th-century abbot, as he writes at his desk. In the central cave Jerome kneels before a crucifix, on the rocky spur above him Francis receives the stigmata, and in a clearing a monk, Benedict or perhaps Romuald, reads from a pulpit to rows of brothers in white. Most of them belong to the religious orders of later centuries, which is why the museum now calls it an allegory of monastic life. It came from San Giorgio alla Costa, a monastery in Florence, and may have been made for a confraternity that met in its rooms by night to do penance. Up by the church, a group of men kneel stripped to the waist before a crucifix, scourging themselves.