Parish of St Francis

This guide to the Parish of St Francis in Pisa starts with a search for two paintings that no longer hang here: a Madonna by Cimabue, from around twelve eighty, that broke centuries of painting convention, and a scene of Francis receiving the stigmata that the Franciscans commissioned from Cimabue's own pupil, Giotto. It follows both panels through Napoleon's occupation, when his officers catalogued Pisa's portable treasures for shipment to Paris. The guide then asks what the church kept behind, once its two most famous pictures were gone. Look up into the transept for what still covers the plaster there.