Bird Sermon Comparisons

Sermon to the Birds, also known as St Francis Preaching to the Birds , is a religiously inspired artwork by Giotto di Bondone.

The title belongs to more than one image. In the Upper Church of San Francesco at Assisi, Francis's encounter with the birds forms the fifteenth episode of a twenty-eight-scene life. In the Louvre, the same subject occupies the right-hand compartment of the predella, the strip of smaller narratives below the principal scene of Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata. The familiar detail with a gold background, a forward-leaning Francis and a leafy tree comes from this Louvre panel. The wall painting at Assisi opens into a blue-grey landscape. Comparing the two reveals how a few shared ingredients can serve very different viewing situations. The dedicated account of St Francis Preaching to the Birds at Assisi examines the mural itself; here the changing shape and purpose of the story are the focus.

Story behind the Sermon

St Francis delivers this sermon to the birds, and reminds them to speak proudly and positively about the lord. The birds swoop in to listen to his words, attentively grouped close-by.

Oh birds, my brothers and sisters, you have a great obligation to praise your Creator, who clothed you in feathers and gave you wings to fly with, provided you with pure air and cares for you without any worry on your part.

These words convey the substance of the address in Bonaventure's Life of Saint Francis, XII.3, but their modern English wording is not an authenticated transcript of Francis speaking. They are also not an exact quotation from E. Gurney Salter's 1904 translation: that version addresses the birds as brothers, and its phrasing differs throughout. Bonaventure presents the sermon within a saint's life, with the birds' extraordinary understanding and obedience demonstrating Francis's holiness. The passage gives us a narrative that painters could represent, rather than independent evidence of animal behaviour. Its emphasis is praise for the Creator's providential care: feathers, flight, air and sustenance are gifts for which the birds are called to give thanks. ^[1]

From this sermon onwards, St Francis would speak to other birds, animals and more to teach them to be grateful for their creation, and to thank the lord for this. Narratives such as this remind us that God did not only create humanity, but also everything else in the world.

Within Bonaventure's account, Francis returns to his companions reproaching himself for having neglected to preach to birds before. That ending explains the story's expansive view of preaching. The creatures are brought within an act of praise which a human audience can recognise and imitate. Bonaventure describes their stretching necks, opening beaks and spreading wings; he also says that they remain until Francis makes the sign of the cross and dismisses them. Their eventual flight belongs to the blessing at the end of the encounter. A painting may combine gathered and airborne birds within one field without providing a moment-by-moment diagram of the text. ^[1]

The preceding sections make this gentle episode part of a larger decision. In XII.1–2 Francis wonders whether he should devote himself to prayer or go out preaching. He seeks counsel through Silvester and Clare, and the answer directs him towards public ministry. The encounter near Bevagna follows immediately. Read in that sequence, the birds are an unexpected first congregation after a renewed commitment to preach. The story joins contemplation to action: Francis's attention to creatures grows from his religious vocation and carries its teaching beyond an exclusively human gathering. ^[23]

Commissions in Assisi

Sermon to the Birds was part of Giotto’s work in Assisi, where he focused on scenes from the life of St Francis. He constructed twenty five in total, of the twenty eight dedicated to this saint, though he also worked on other projects within the same church.

The precise allocation of twenty-five scenes to Giotto should be treated cautiously. The Upper Church programme involved a substantial collaborative undertaking, and its attribution remains disputed. The basilica's own description acknowledges both the Giotto attribution supported by some scholars and the Roman-school attribution favoured by others. A numerical division of the cycle does not establish how many scenes an individual painter personally executed. ^[24]

Giotto had two clear periods of work in Assisi, taking on both the upper and lower churches at different points in his career - there was a gap of several decades between the two projects. Many of the subjects that he covered here would also re-appear in other work elsewhere in Italy, where donors were impressed with his previous versions and wanted something similar for themselves.

The separation into two clear periods, divided by decades, is likewise a simplified chronology rather than an established timetable. The Upper and Lower Churches contain distinct programmes, and their dates, workshops and relationships have to be examined separately. Nor does the recurrence of a subject by itself document a donor asking for a copy. Shared Franciscan narratives, access to related designs and the requirements of different commissions all belong to the comparison; their relative importance cannot be settled by resemblance alone. ^{[24] [2]}

The artist’s work in Assisi remains amongst the highlights of his entire career, with both series of works being highly regarded.

The Louvre panel makes the problem particularly interesting because all three of its predella subjects also appear in the Assisi cycle: Innocent III's dream, the approval of the Franciscan way of life, and the sermon to the birds. The relationship is more substantial than two pictures merely including a tree and a saint. Yet agreement about a relationship need not produce agreement about its direction. Michael Viktor Schwarz discusses the corresponding compositions in his study of Giotto's works and proposes his own account of their development. His comparison is useful; its chronology is an argument, not a licence to label the Louvre scene a settled copy of the Assisi mural, or the mural a settled copy of the panel. ^[2]

The Louvre altarpiece’s three predella scenes, with the bird sermon at the right. Shonagon / Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain Mark1.0. Image source. Public domain. Proportionally reduced reproduction; no colour or content enhancement.

Composition

The composition of Sermon to the Birds featuring Saint Francis with an outstretched arm, pointing directly towards the birds who gather close-by. They are mainly focused on his words, standing beneath a healthy looking tree which overhangs above from the right hand side.

A colleague of the saint stands besides him, perhaps in awe at proceedings as he sees Saint Francis enchant these birds with his words. This important story reminds us of the importance of birds and animals to God, and that we should continue to care for them as well as appreciating their existence.

The companion's presence is visible in both versions, while his precise inner response remains an interpretation. Bonaventure supplies companions who witness the event from the road, but the image does not name this particular friar or tell us what he thinks. Similarly, the birds' attentiveness is the miracle as the saint's life presents it. The painting's effectiveness comes from making that exceptional exchange understandable through ordinary bodily actions: a person approaches, extends a hand, and finds an audience apparently turning towards him. ^[1]

The bird sermon in Assisi’s Upper Church, a separate wall painting from the Louvre predella. Image source. Public domain. Proportionally reduced reproduction; no colour or content enhancement.

The foliage around the tree is also healthy and green, with bushy leaves which is noticeably different to some of his other versions, such as in Lamentation. Giotto would adapt the condition of his foliage to match the mood of the painting, and in this example we find a relatively upbeat work in which the birds are taught by St Francis to appreciate all that they have, and to thank the lord for it.

That comparison benefits from a qualification. The tree in the Padua Lamentation has small green shoots, so it cannot be described simply as wholly dead or made the opposite pole of a universal healthy-tree/happy-scene code. Foliage can contribute to a viewer's reading of a setting without every tree carrying a fixed emotional label. In the birds scenes, the right-hand tree also performs an immediate compositional task: it rises above the low congregation, balances the friars on the left, and gives the encounter a recognisable outdoor setting.

Bodies, hands and the listening space

Both representations incline Francis towards the birds. Their difference is more subtle than an upright saint opposed to a bending one. In the Louvre predella, the long forward movement of his upper body continues into an extended sleeve and hand. The line is especially clear against the gold. His other hand remains lower, close to his body, while the companion stands behind him. A broad mass of habit has been turned into an unmistakable act of address. Even when the whole altarpiece is viewed from a distance, the small preacher can be understood through the direction of that movement.

At Assisi, Francis's gesture is more compact. His head bows towards the congregation, but his nearer forearm lifts in front of him instead of stretching as far into the space above it. His other hand hangs lower and opens towards the birds. The two hands give a measured rhythm to the encounter, with the face and halo drawing attention back towards the speaker. Schwarz similarly distinguishes the more emphatic gesture of the panel from the quieter Francis of the fresco, relating the difference partly to the demands of the two formats. ^[25]

In each version, empty space helps the gesture speak. The saint and the birds do not need to touch. The interval between hand and congregation becomes the place across which the address travels. Airborne birds interrupt it without filling it completely. The viewer can follow a movement from the friar's body to his hand and onward to the gathering below the tree. The companion provides a second human response to this exchange, placing an observer inside the picture as well as outside it.

A landscape and a gold field

The Assisi image surrounds the figures with a larger landscape. Slender trees rise behind the friars on the left, answering the much fuller tree on the right. The darkened ground and cooler field behind the encounter give the birds and brown habits a different setting from the warm gold of the panel. These contrasts should be read through the paintings' present surfaces; reproductions and the condition of a mural can affect colour, contrast and legibility. The secure comparison is the arrangement of landscape and figures, rather than a claim to recover precisely how every colour appeared when first painted.

The Louvre compartment compresses the setting. A narrow green ground carries the friars, the birds and the tree, while gold fills the surrounding field. The tree's dense crown gives the upper right considerable weight; beneath it, dark and light bird bodies form a lively cluster. Two airborne shapes help lead the eye through the open area between the saint and the tree. The gold makes their silhouettes readily visible, and allows a scene of outdoor preaching to remain visually continuous with the altarpiece's devotional splendour.

Differences of body size, plumage colour and posture make the birds look like a varied assembly. Identifying individual species is unnecessary to understand the scene, and small reproductions do not support confident ornithological catalogues. The important distinction is between the birds as a group and their separate responses. Some stand close together, some lift their heads, and others are shown in the air. This gives the congregation a collective presence without making it a single repeated shape. The same balance between unity and variety helps a human crowd seem attentive in other narrative paintings.

Twenty-eight episodes and three small scenes

At Assisi, the sermon belongs to an extended public account of Francis's life. It can be understood alongside acts of renunciation, papal recognition, prayer, preaching, death and posthumous miracles. The twenty-eight-scene cycle supplies time and accumulation. The birds encounter becomes one aspect of a founder whose authority and sanctity are demonstrated repeatedly. Its relative compositional simplicity gives a pause within a much more populous and architecturally varied sequence.

The Louvre predella has to do something more concentrated. Its three compartments offer a short selection beneath a dominant image. On the left, the sleeping Innocent III dreams of Francis supporting the endangered Lateran basilica. In the centre, the pope approves the Franciscan way of life. On the right, Francis addresses the birds. Architectural interiors and human assemblies give way to an outdoor congregation. The change is striking precisely because the three scenes share one narrow register: the last little picture opens the teaching activity beyond the institutional settings of the first two. ^[26]

This juxtaposition allows several kinds of authority to reinforce one another. The dream associates Francis with the support of the Church; papal approval locates his mission within it; the sermon shows the reach of his preaching. Such a reading follows the subjects placed together, without requiring us to recover a patron's exact instructions. Above them, the principal Stigmatisation presents his bodily conformity to the crucified Christ on a monumental scale. The viewer encounters both an overwhelming sacred vision and smaller stories through which the saint's vocation can be followed. The separate article on Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata considers that principal image in detail.

The panel's physical identity matters to this reading. It is a large, gabled altarpiece, 313 by 163 centimetres, with painting and a gold ground on poplar; the small birds scene is only one part of that object. Its frame bears the signature Opus Iocti florentini, identifying the work with Giotto of Florence. The Louvre currently gives the broad date 1300–1325. Its record traces the work from San Francesco in Pisa through subsequent Pisan locations to its removal during the Napoleonic period and arrival at the Louvre in 1813. It is therefore a panel with a Pisan history, not a detached Assisi fresco. ^[27]

The coats of arms on the frame have received competing identifications, including the Ughi and Cinquini families. Those alternatives limit confident claims about a particular donor. The signature is an important point of reference when discussing related pictures, but it does not establish the authorship of every Assisi passage or solve the chronological relationship between the two sermons. What the pictures do show is the same encounter reshaped for a broad wall narrative and a small compartment beneath a commanding devotional image. ^[27]

Conclusion

We can conclude that Sermon to the Birds is a relatively simple composition by the standards of Giotto within his work in Assisi, but still nonetheless significant. The connection between human and bird is enchanting, and Giotto works hard to bring the life of Saint Francis to us all, by carefully choosing key moments from his influential life.

The motif also invites a modern concern for creatures and the world they inhabit. That response can be valuable while remaining distinct from the pictures' original Franciscan setting. Bonaventure's sermon concerns the praise owed to a Creator who provides for his creatures. The paintings show a saint exercising a ministry that even birds are said to recognise; they do not set out a modern environmental programme. Their continuing appeal comes partly from the way that theological claim becomes a small, legible encounter. A bowed head, an open hand, a waiting companion and a gathering under a tree make the distance between human speech and animal life seem momentarily crossable. On the wall and in the predella, the encounter remains recognisable, while its place within a larger painted structure changes what the viewer is invited to remember.