When Francisco de Goya was just 35 years old, he received one of his earliest major public commissions: a set of monumental paintings for the Basilica of San Francisco el Grande in Madrid. Among these, The Sermon of Saint Bernadino of Siena stands out for its sheer scale and ambition, measuring over four meters high. The project was a pivotal moment for the young artist, thrusting him into the spotlight of the Spanish capital’s artistic scene in 1781.

The commission was fiercely competitive, with established painters vying for the honor, and Goya’s selection signaled his arrival as a force in late eighteenth-century Spanish art. The scene captures the charismatic Saint Bernardino of Siena addressing a rapt crowd in the open air, his right arm raised in fervor as he preaches against vice and urges devotion to Christ. Goya freezes the instant when the saint’s words electrify the listeners: some kneel in awe, others press forward, and a few turn away, skeptical or distracted. The sunlit figure of Bernardino, clad in a simple Franciscan habit, stands out against the darker mass of onlookers, his gesture echoed by the golden monogram of Christ (IHS) he holds aloft—a symbol of his mission.

Goya’s composition, with its dynamic diagonals and expressive faces, brings the drama of the pulpit to life, much as Tiepolo did in his Venetian religious scenes, but with a distinctly Spanish gravity. The painting’s journey has always been tied to its original home in the basilica, where it still presides above the altar dedicated to the saint. Unlike many of Goya’s later works, which traveled through private collections and suffered the upheavals of war, The Sermon of Saint Bernadino of Siena has remained in situ, a testament to the artist’s early public success. Created before Goya’s court appointment and his famous darker period, it reveals his mastery of large-scale religious storytelling and his ability to capture the fervor of faith.

Today, it stands as a key monument of his formative years, bridging the traditions of Spanish Baroque with the new sensibilities of the Enlightenment.