Rest on the Flight into Egypt with St Francis

This painting was commissioned in c. 1520 by jurist Francesco Munari - affluent jurist and a man of great culture - for the family chapel of the Immaculate Conception in the Church of St Francis in Correggio. For this small altarpiece, Correggio draws inspiration from a miraculous episode narrated in the apocryphal gospel of pseudo-Matthew: Mary stopped to rest under a date palm and, seeing it full of fruits, she asked Joseph to pick some. However, considering the fruits were too high to reach, Joseph replied they should rather think about finding some water. Jesus then asked the palm to bend its branches so they could refresh themselves with its fruits, and at its roots there appeared a spring of clear water. Correggio paints the moment when Joseph, still holding a branch, offers Jesus some fruits. The intimate dimension of the event is rendered in the serenity of affections within the family group in everyday life, amidst luxuriant natural surroundings (in this case the welcoming shade of the palm tree and of the oak grove).

Correggio’s style merges Leonardo’s expression of the variety of affections with Raphael’s classical harmony. The Child, standing on Mary’s knees, holds out his hand to take the fruits, but his intense gaze is turned towards the observer. The Virgin, universal mediatrix, is seated under the palm tree and looks to her left towards St Francis including him in the life of the group, though chronologically extraneous to the narrative. Its presence is justified both as the namesake saint of the patron, Francesco Munari, and for the church designation, belonging to the Franciscan Order.

The work, sold by the Franciscan friars to duke Francesco d’Este in 1638, was acquired soon afterwards by grand duke Ferdinando II de’ Medici in exchange for the Sacrifice of Isaac by Andrea del Sarto (now in Dresden). The small altarpiece immediately hung in the Tribuna of the Uffizi, among the masterpieces of the Medici collections.