ABSTRACT
The shards found in the apsidal chapel eventually revealed a fresco program depicting a large central image of Saint Francis of Assisi surrounded by scenes from his life and miracles. In the center of the program was a standing figure of Saint Francis supporting an open book with his left hand. The iconization of Francis in Eastern form was an attempt to articulate him in a theology and spirituality that understood the sacramental depths of human and divine union and how that manifested itself in pictorial sacramenta. The Franciscans had established a house in Constantinople by 1220 and a school of theology by 1229, but even after 1261 and the reconquest of Constantinople by Michael VIII Palaeologus, Franciscans maintained houses in and aro und Constantinople. It is clear that friars in Constantinople at time of production of Kalenderhane frescoes of Saint Francis were intimately aware of Greek culture and politics and of the theological depths of the Greek liturgy.
