Apparition of the Virgin to St. Bernard is a painting by the Italian Renaissance painter Filippino Lippi, completed around 1485–1487.[1] It is housed in the Badia Fiorentina, a church in Florence.

Apparition of the Virgin to St Bernard
Artist	Filippino Lippi
Year	c. 1485–1487
Medium	Oil on panel
Dimensions	210 cm × 195 cm (83 in × 77 in)
Location	Badia Fiorentina, Florence

The picture was commissioned for the chapel of Francesco del Pugliese by the latter's son Piero, who is portrayed in the lower right corner in the traditional praying posture of the donor portrait.

It is one of the most admired Lippi's works,[2] due to its powerful, Flemish-inspired chromatism and attention to details, which contribute in turning the mystical apparition of the Virgin to St. Bernard into an everyday life scene. The composition is set in a rocky landscape in which the saint, while writing on his lectern, is suddenly visited by the Virgin. Behind Bernard's shoulders is depicted the demon biting his chains: this is a reference to a medieval hymn celebrating the Virgin as the liberator of humanity from the chains of their sins.

A scroll on a rock contains a verse by the 3rd century AD stoic writer Epictetus: Sustine et abstine ("Carry on and abstain"), a hint to Bernard's teachings.

Some scholars have identified in the faces of the Virgin and the angels on the left the portraits of the donor's wife and sons.

References

• Page at artonline.it (in Italian)

Footnotes

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На других языках

[es] La visión de san Bernardo (Filippino Lippi)

[fr] L'Apparition de la Vierge à saint Bernard (Filippino Lippi)

[it] Apparizione della Vergine a san Bernardo (Filippino Lippi)