The Vision of Saint Benedict

The Vision of Saint Benedict

Francesco de Mura

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Saint Benedict stands at the center of the composition, looking upward at an apparition of the Holy Trinity, while around the saint are gathered members of the male and female religious orders that follow his monastic rule, as well as lay men and women devoted to his cult. The drawing is a study with a number of variations for a ceiling fresco, signed by de Mura and dated 1740, at the center of the nave of the Neapolitan church of Saints Severino e Sossio. In the number and in the placement of the figures, an oil sketch at the Museo di Capodimonte in Naples is closer to the finished fresco than our drawing.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Vision of Saint BenedictThe Vision of Saint BenedictThe Vision of Saint BenedictThe Vision of Saint BenedictThe Vision of Saint Benedict

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.