Elias was not only a spiritual friend and close companion of Francis of Assisi, he was a strategic figure in the growth and development of the Franciscan Order throughout Europe and in the Holy Land. His great intellect and charisma led him to play a key role as a negotiator and diplomat. Highly educated, advisor to the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick II, he was a skilled engineer and architect, his greatest work being the final resting place of Saint Francis, the magnificent basilica in Assisi. His attempts to resolve differences between the empire and papacy would culminate in his excommunication, but in the years that followed, his continuing dedication to the memory of Francis and the Order he founded was focused on Cortona, where he had extended Le Celle and designed and constructed the Church and Convent of Saint Francis, the prototype for all Franciscan churches that followed. Reconciled with the church before his death, Elias of Cortona was laid to rest in the choir, close to the relics of Saint Francis and the fragment of the Holy Cross gifted to him in the Holy Land. He was, despite the controversy and mystery that surrounded him in life and after death, a genius of his time. This drawing is my way of telling his story, from what little we know, in gratitude for the mark he left on the world.
 
Kate Bray (Agnelli) August 2024