The imagery of Jan van Eyck's The Stigmatization of St. Francis, looked at in the context of contemporary illustrated manuscripts, devotional images, and prayer manuals, suggests that the artist was using the Agony in the Garden theme to portray St. Francis as a type of Christ. The viewer would be able to identify certain mnemonic images within the painting as "markers" to instances in Christ's life and death. This led to a mental visualization of Christ's entire ministry, from the Annunciation to the Cross, as called for in Pseudo-Bonaventure's Meditations on the Life of Christ, a Franciscan prayer manual for Christocentric meditation.