Designing a book cover often begins with a search for the right image. For The Passions of Saint Francis, a historical novel by Charles Gaines, that search took me through centuries of paintings and sculptures before I found the answer in a work by Caravaggio.
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It must be forty years since I first saw Giovanni Bellini's extraordinary painting Saint Francis in the Desert at the Frick Collection in New York, and it's been etched into my memory ever since. Then, this past spring, The Crossroad Publishing Company commissioned me to design the cover of The Passions of Saint Francis, a new novel by Charles Gaines, and I thought I might be able to use it.
Painted around 1480, Saint Francis in the Desert is one of those works of art you can look at for hours and still discover new details: the blue heron, the quiet donkey, the skull reminding Francis of death, the rock-hard landscape surrounding him, and the luminous blue sky above.
But as much as I wanted to use it, Bellini's Francis was all wrong for the cover. He is looking to God in the heavens, while the Francis in the novel is very much in the world—still a saint, but also very human.
Giovanni Bellini, Saint Francis in the Desert (c. 1480), Frick Collection, New York. An early inspiration for the book cover design, but its depiction of Francis in a moment of divine revelation wasn't right for the novel.
Searching for Saint Francis
In the course of the project, I looked at hundreds of images of Saint Francis. Apparently, that's only a fraction of what's out there. In 2023, London's National Gallery organized a major exhibition devoted to Saint Francis, and its curators noted that as many as 20,000 images of him may have been produced in the century following his death, excluding illuminated manuscripts. That leaves another 700 years of art celebrating the saint's life. You do the math.
One of the images we considered was a photograph that the author found of a scene at Sacro Monte di Orta in northern Italy, an extraordinary complex of 20 chapels containing 376 life-size painted terracotta figures depicting the life of Saint Francis. Begun in 1590 and completed over nearly two centuries, the chapels combine sculpture, painting, and architecture to create immersive, theatrical scenes. But as remarkable as the figures are, they felt too frozen in time to work on the cover.
A scene from the life of Saint Francis at Sacro Monte di Orta, northern Italy. The complex's 20 chapels contain hundreds of painted terracotta figures, created over nearly two centuries beginning in 1590. Another possibility for the book cover.
If you've ever been to Assisi, you may have seen Giotto's extraordinary cycle of 28 frescoes depicting the life of Saint Francis. The image below, a detail from The Renunciation of Worldly Goods in that cycle, shows the moment the young saint rejected the life of wealth he had been born into. His father, the cloth merchant Pietro di Bernardone, seen holding his son's discarded clothes, is NOT happy. Another gorgeous painting, but again not right.
Detail from The Renunciation of Worldly Goods, part of the 28-scene Saint Francis fresco cycle in the Basilica of San Francesco, Assisi. Francis renounces his inheritance while his father, Pietro di Bernardone, holds his discarded clothes.
There is no doubt a book out there for which the painting below by Antonio Busca (1625–1684) is the perfect cover art, but this book was not it. I would not like to run into these guys in a dark alley.
A dramatic seventeenth-century depiction of Saint Francis and demonic figures by Antonio Busca (1625–1684). Its unsettling imagery suggested an entirely different direction for the historical novel's cover.
Finding the Right Image for the Book Cover
Finally, as time was winding down, I found Caravaggio's Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy. This was a completely different painting from Bellini's, showing a very human Francis—vulnerable and exhausted, held in the arms of an angel.
I didn't love the angel for the cover, but by cropping the art tightly we were left with Saint Francis the man, surrounded by knees, arms, hands, and skin. It was perfect.
Caravaggio, Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy (c. 1595), Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut. The painting's intimate portrayal of a vulnerable, exhausted Francis became the basis for the final book cover design.
I added a burst of lines to bring energy and a more contemporary feeling to the centuries-old painting.
Custom book cover design for The Passions of Saint Francis, a historical novel by Charles Gaines, published by The Crossroad Publishing Company in 2026. The design combines a tightly cropped Caravaggio painting with contemporary graphic elements.
Charles Gaines is the author of 23 books, including the novel Stay Hungry, a National Book Award finalist; the international bestseller Pumping Iron; and the memoir A Family Place. He also co-wrote and narrated the film Pumping Iron, widely credited with bringing bodybuilding, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, to mainstream attention.
Sadly, Gaines died during the final stages of editing the book, but not before we had finalized the cover design. Here's his obituary in The New York Times.
The publication of The Passions of Saint Francis by The Crossroad Publishing Company on October 4 coincided not only with the annual feast day of Saint Francis, but also with the 800th anniversary of his death. 2026 was designated the Jubilee Year of Saint Francis.
A huge thank you to Gwendolin Herder at The Crossroad Publishing Company for the opportunity to work on this book, and for the trust they have placed in me over the past 33 years. I've designed more than 1,000 book covers during that time, probably half of them for Crossroad, and most of my other publishing relationships began with contacts I made there. Without them, my design career would have looked very different.
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Praise for The Passions of Saint Francis
“This is a great novel – massive and beautiful, full of everything that matters. It takes a lifetime to write a book like this, and I will buy a copy for everyone I love.” — Ethan Hawke
“An extraordinary new novel” — Maria Shriver
“A worthy conclusion to a remarkable saintly career is depicted in this imaginative and elegantly written historical novel.” — Kirkus Reviews
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Book Design at Red+Company
I design book covers and interiors for publishers, independent authors, artists, and organizations. If you're working on a book, I'd be happy to hear about it.