Stigmata and Sense Memory: St Francis and the Affective Image

This article analyses a detail of an early fourteenth‐century Umbrian crucifix, depicting a miniature St Francis at the feet of Christ. It reads the discrepancies of scale in the image in relation to both medieval devotional practices and theories of perception, arguing that the detail in late medieval imagery cannot be assimilated to the logic of the whole as it is in perspectivally constructed imagery. Rather, the detail retains a capacity to disrupt the whole and to function – in a manner similar to the Barthesian punctum – as a passage of affective resonance and ‘point‐of‐entry’ for the devotee. Drawing upon work on the ars memoriae and also upon contemporary theorizations of affectivity, the article points to the limitations of iconographic analysis and argues for a better understanding of the affective operations of images in this period.