The Basilica of St Francis

Saint Bernardino of Siena

The first painting, made at the end of the seventeenth century by Dionisio Montorselli for the Bandini chapel, represents the Preaching of Saint Bernardino (1380-1444), a member of the Franciscan Order known for his itinerant evangelization that took place in Siena and in some other towns in Tuscany and northern Italy. The saint, at the centre of the painting in a raised position, is showing the tablet inscribed with the IHS trigram, a sign of devotion to the name of Jesus, the surrounding crowd. By the feet of the man in the foreground lie the cards that he threw to the ground after hearing Saint Bernardino’s words; in his sermons this Saint not only condemned gambling, but also luxury and vanity, to which the lady in the foreground renounces by making the symbolic gesture of cutting her hair.