Francis and Brother Wolf: Art Tells the Legend

Francesca Orsini2025-09-03T11:34:39+02:00

Francis and Brother Wolf: Art Tells the Legend

In 2025 and part of 2026, in preparation for the celebrations planned to mark the eighth centenary of the Saint’s death, the city of Gubbio will pay homage to Saint Francis, champion of peace and brotherhood, with an exhibition dedicated to the story of an epochal episode in the life of Francis, in which Gubbio played a key role: the Seraphic Father’s taming of the ferocious wolf that terrorized the Apennine city. The story was first recounted in Latin in the Actus beati Francisci et sociorum eius, from the first third of the 14th century, and later popularized in the vernacular version of the Fioretti, dating to the second half of the 14th century (before 1396). The wolf and birds are the best-known manifestation of the Saint’s relationship with the natural world, and are a prelude to Pope John Paul II’s encyclical letter in 1979, which proclaimed Francis the “patron saint of ecologists.”
Although Francis is one of the most depicted saints in the history of art, no exhibition has ever been organized focusing on this encounter. The exhibition unfolds as a visual narrative that, through paintings, drawings, sculptures, ceramics, sphragistic testimonies, illustrated books, postcards, documents, and engravings spanning the 15th to the 21st century, traces the figurative fortunes of the iconography of the encounter between Francis and the Wolf of Gubbio, reaching up to the contemporary era. The narrative is enhanced by videos and immersive reconstructions that, in addition to the works on display, also highlight the immovable works preserved in various locations around the city of Gubbio, linked to the presence of the Franciscans and the legend. The exhibition is divided into three sections hosted by the Civic Museum of Palazzo dei Consoli, the Diocesan Museum, and the Logge dei Tiratori.

Open: Monday to Friday 10 am – 1 pm, 3 pm – 6 pm; Saturday, Sunday and holidays, 10am-6pm