2-996-203 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

St Catherine Imploring Pope Gregory XI to Return from Avignon to Rome, early-mid 18th century. Catherine is persuading the Pope to return to Rome to end the 'Avignon Papacy' (the period when Avignon was the capital of the papal state); the Eternal City appears as a vision on the horizon. Gregory XI is portrayed with a hand on his chest, looking down, in the act of making a solemn resolution before the cardinals in the background. A crowd of people is trying to enter the palace, and an allegorical depiction (possibly to be identified as Wisdom overcoming Ignorance) closes the image to the left.