"sì me trae tutto tanto è bello!" - The Search for Christ in Francis in the Frescoes of the Lower Basilica of Assisi

From March 28, 2026 to January 10, 2027, the Biblioteca e Officina San Francesco Bologna hosts the exhibition  "sì me trae tutto tanto è bello!" - The Search for Christ in Francis in the Frescoes of the Lower Basilica of Assisi, curated by Elena Alberio and Marco Braghin.

What kind of beauty can be conveyed by a man who strips himself of all possessions and ends his days with a body marked by wounds? Is it only the charm of poverty, or is there something deeper that, today as eight hundred years ago, continues to question us? The exhibition “sì me trae tutto, tanto è bello!” is a visual and spiritual inquiry that begins with a question: who was Francis of Assisi, really?
Entering the heart of the lower church of the Basilica of Assisi, among the arches that house the paintings of the mysterious Master of Saint Francis, means following the traces of an artist who was among the first to attempt to give an image to the saint of Assisi. He, who had stirred contrasting feelings of fascination and astonishment in many, was first struck by an inexpressible attraction toward one single other Face: that of Christ.
Through reconstructions and reproductions, the exhibition reveals a revolutionary play of figurative correspondences: on one side the life of Jesus, on the other that of Francis. Why this choice? Is it possible for a person to become so similar to the Beloved as to resemble Him? Francis is not presented as a hero, but as a person who finds his identity in relationships: with the Church, with his brothers, and with the created world.
In a world that chases the perfection of appearance, the anonymous Master proposes a “humanly sustainable” holiness: it is the nakedness of one who has nothing left to defend and, precisely for this reason, becomes capable of speaking to a wounded, disoriented humanity in search of meaning. Moreover, the unknown artist suggests a beauty that is not merely aesthetic: his art is a “beauty of truth,” which the exhibition reinterprets in light of written sources and re-evaluates within the early Italian painting tradition.
Are you ready to be drawn in? Come and discover how 13th-century art was able to translate the disruptive Christian and Franciscan event into a vivid and engaging visual testimony. Because, in the end, the question remains ours: what are we truly searching for?

Opening
March 28, 2026, 6:00 PM
Bologna, Biblioteca San Francesco
with 
Fr. Roberto Brandinelli, Provincial Minister of the Conventual Friars Minor of Northern Italy
Costantino D'Orazio, Director of the National Gallery of Umbria
Sergio Fusetti, Head Restorer of the Papal Basilica of Saint Francis in Assisi
Fr. Marco Moroni, General Custodian of the Sacred Convent of St. Francis in Assisi
followed by a guided tour of the exhibition

Thanks to Banca di Bologna

In collaboration with: National Gallery of Umbria, National Art Gallery of Bologna, Photographic Archive of the Library of the Sacred Convent of Saint Francis in Assisi, Festival Francescano

With the patronage of: National Committee for the Celebrations of the 8th Centenary of the Death of Saint Francis of Assisi, Emilia-Romagna Region, Municipality of Bologna, Archdiocese of Bologna, Papal Basilica of Saint Francis in Assisi, Italian Province of St. Anthony of Padua of the Conventual Friars Minor, Community of the First Franciscan Order of Bologna