Sordid mysticism, decadent poverty: On two episodes of Franciscan aesthetics in Italy's modernism (Savinio 1946; D'Annunzio 1926).

This article examines two distinct yet convergent twentieth-century Italian receptions of Saint Francis of Assisi’s figure and aesthetics by Gabriele D’Annunzio and Alberto Savinio. It highlights how fascist-era nationalist icon D’Annunzio’s “cell of pure dreams” (1926), a richly decorated death chamber featuring a painting by Guido Cadorin, embodies a paradoxical “decadent” Franciscan mysticism focused on sordidness and corporeal suffering. Conversely, Savinio’s 1946 anti-fascist reflections and unrealized film project propose a “sordid sainthood” that challenges sanitized, bourgeois hagiographies by emphasizing Francis’s sensuality and attraction to filth, illustrated through an ekphrastic engagement with surrealist painter Leonor Fini’s work. The article argues that despite ideological opposition, both artists reject euphemistic portrayals of sanctity, instead embracing a Franciscan aesthetic that foregrounds physicality, desire, and radical sensualism within modern Italian cultural and political contexts.