ABSTRACT
From its inception, Franciscan theology has been very sensitive to aesthetic issues. The inspiration comes both from Francis’s own sensitivity to the material world and the Augustinian and Dionysian sources of early Franciscan theology. Several major Franciscan theologians, such as Peter Aureol, William Ockham, Walter Chatton, and Adam Wodeham rely on sensory and aesthetic experience to argue about the aesthetic issue. Some of the more remarkable observations about the role of the senses and aesthetic experience come specifically from the discussion of the status of intentional objects in phenomenal appearances, which is central to the cognitive/epistemological theory of Franciscan theologians in the 1300s. Franciscans have been involved with stained glass and commented on it at least since the times of Bonaventure. Angela of Foligno records the presence of stained glass in the Basilica of Saint Francis in Assisi in mid-thirteenth century.
