St. Francis Solanus
All Saints Cathedral, Santa Fe, New Mexico
According to Navarro, the saint would often play his lute before a statue of the Virgin Mary (Acta Sanctorum, July vol. 5, 877-78). This modern painting substitutes a more familiar violin for the lute.
Images of Franciscan saints in Spain and New Mexico sometimes feature blue habits. Some branches of the order in Spain and the Americas did wear blue in honor of the belief in the
Immaculate Conception of Mary
The belief that Mary was free of original sin (the sinfulness that humans are said to inherit from Adam and Eve) from the moment of her conception.
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In most branches the practice ended after 1854, when the belief was proclaimed to be Catholic dogma (Dominguez, 264; Carillo, 148).
In the background are two swallows and one other bird. There are no birds in Navarro's account. Perhaps the artist added them because swallows are associated with the Franciscan John Capistrano.
Read more about images of St. Francis Solanus.
Source: this page at Wikimedia Commons.
