Madonna and Saint Francis by Pietro Da Cortona 1628
Pietro da Cortona was an Italian architect, painter, and decorator, an outstanding exponent of Baroque style. Along with his contemporaries and rivals Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Francesco Borromini, he was one of the key figures in the emergence of Roman Baroque architecture. He was also an important designer of interior decorations.
He was born Pietro Berrettini, but is primarily known by the name of his native town of Cortona in Tuscany. He worked mainly in Rome and Florence. He is best known for his frescoed ceilings such as the vault of the salone or main salon of the Palazzo Barberini in Rome and carried out extensive painting and decorative schemes for the Medici family in Florence and for the Oratorian fathers at the church of Santa Maria in Vallicella in Rome. He also painted numerous canvases. Only a limited number of his architectural projects were built but nonetheless they are as distinctive and as inventive as those of his rivals.
This painting depicts the emblems of the chivalrous orders of the Passerini family: The knnights of St. Stephen (whose cross appears on the cape of the Pope St. Stephen, the knights of Malta (symbolized by their patron, St. John the Baptist). St. Francis, often shown holding the Crucifix, is without one here; he is in ecstasy adoring the Christ Child.
The Child Jesus is pointing toward the Baptist, who came to show the way to Christ
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