North Carolina Museum of Art

Murillo, the last great figure of the Golden Age of Spanish painting, spent most of his career in Seville. The Museum's painting was part of a series for the Sevillian monastery of San Francisco that constituted his first large commission. All the paintings in the series illustrate miraculous episodes in the lives of Franciscans, including Giles, a follower of St. Francis in the thirteenth century. His religious fervor was so intense that he experienced states of ecstasy during which he levitated off the ground. Hearing of this miracle, the Pope wished to witness it. The inscription at the bottom of the painting identifies the event depicted as Giles entering into "divine ecstasy" before the seated Pope. A light illuminates the monk's head against the dark background. Such dramatic effects of light and shadow were practised by Murillo's Sevillian predecessor Velazquez and demonstrate an interest among Spanish painters of the seventeenth century in the styles of Italian and Netherlandish artists.