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The final expense report for the construction and decoration of the new retrochoir of the cathedral of Burgos contains an inconsistency that may reflect conflicting opinions among the early modern clergy concerning religious imagery displayed in a public setting. The Benedictine artist and architect Fray Juan Ricci was one of the artists involved in this important commission: Ricci was awarded 5,5151/2 reales for a series of six paintings destined for the side altars, a series that included "The Ecstasy of St Francis", one of his most powerful celebrations of visionary experience. Yet soon after Ricci's series was completed, two canons, Diego and Manuel de la Moneda, purchased an additional canvas of St Francis from a local artist, perhaps as a replacement for Ricci's version of the miraculous event. The possible controversy surrounding Ricci's painting provides an opportunity to examine the role of devotional painting in seventeenth-century Castile.
