Saint Francis in Meditation, Caravaggio (1607)
In a gloomy and arid scenery, San Francesco wraps a skull with his hands. He is meditating about death, considered to be the redemption from earthly life. Each detail in the scene bears the mark of humility and penance such as the hole in the habit over his shoulder, the broken trunk and the wooden cross, which is a clear allusion to the passion of Christ. The skull and the cross mediate the dialogue between San Francesco and the divine and follow aprototypical counter-reformist iconography.
