Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata

The story is set in September 1224 on La Verna, a mountain in Tuscany where Francis of Assisi had gone to fast and pray. A vision of a seraph in the form of a crucified man came to him, and afterwards his hands, feet and side carried the wounds of Christ. Here thin red rays run from the vision in the sky to each of those places, and his companion Brother Leo sits below the rocks, shading his eyes.

What makes the museum call this panel almost eccentric for Italian painting around 1500 is the light. The sun is going down. The clouds are edged with red and a mountain lake takes on golden reflections, a landscape the museum finds closer to German examples than to Italian ones. Morone painted it for San Bernardino, the Franciscan church of Verona.