Delivery of the Franciscan Rule

Around 1445 the King of Naples, Alfonso of Aragon, was one of the few rulers in Italy who owned paintings by Jan van Eyck and other Netherlandish masters, and their sharp northern realism was the height of fashion at his court. You can feel that taste in this panel by the local painter Colantonio, in the crisp textures of the friars' robes and the careful fall of light. It was the centre of a large altarpiece for the Franciscan church of San Lorenzo Maggiore, and it shows Saint Francis handing his written rule to the kneeling brothers and to the Poor Clares who followed it. The panel survives in the Capodimonte museum in Naples, recently cleaned and returned to view.