St. Francis in Ecstasy with St. Benedict and an Angel

When Guercino painted this, the violin was still a fairly new instrument, better known from dance music than from church. Here an angel plays one. Saint Francis of Assisi is carried away by the sound, and Saint Benedict, founder of the Benedictine monks, stands with his abbot's staff at the left. The two men lived some seven centuries apart, yet between them they shaped much of monastic life in the West, which is why a patron could set them side by side. The music comes from the early lives of Francis. Ill and in pain, he longed to hear a little music, and one night an angel came and played for him so sweetly that he felt he had left this world. Guercino made the canvas in 1620 for the Dondini family chapel in the church of San Pietro at Cento. He painted Francis and the angel with the violin again more than once, and only this first version includes Benedict.