Habemus Papam St. Francis of Assisi painted 1430-32

St. Francis of Assisi (1181/2 – 1226) Receiving the Stigmata;

Jan Van Eyck (1395-1441); Netherlandish; painted 1430-32.  Oil on vellum on wood panel.

Philadelphia Museum of Art.

St. Francis of Assisi Receiving the Stigmata, 1430-32. Jan Van Eyck, 1441, Philadelphia Musuem of Art-1

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St. Francis Receiving the Stigmata, after Jan Van Eyck; Peter Paone; American (born 1936); etching; 1991; Woodmere Museum of Art, Philadelphia.

And my view is that we are fortunate to know this luminous artistic tradition and that other tradition which originated in the West – Les Lumieres – equally luminous – which has allowed us, beyond the reach of any orthodoxy, to choose what we believe and how we will try to live.