The Rest on the Flight to Egypt with Saint Francis

Correggio was around thirty and still a local name when he painted this, in the small town of Correggio that gave him his. A jurist there, Francesco Munari, commissioned it about 1520 for his family chapel in the church of San Francesco. The scene comes from an old legend rather than the Gospels. Resting on the flight into Egypt, Mary sees a date palm heavy with fruit, and Joseph reaches up to pick some for the child. Saint Francis kneels at the left, centuries out of his own time, put there because he was the patron's namesake and the saint of the church. Later the friars sold the panel to the Este dukes, and it eventually reached the Medici in Florence, where it hangs today.