History of St. Francis of Assisi

Saint Francis, by El Greco. Image: Wikipedia

History of St. Francis of Assisi

The man we know as St. Francis was born in Assisi, Italy, in 1181 or 1182, and died on October 3, 1226. His feast day is October 4. In October 2025, the Italian Parliament restored October 4th as a national feast, previously dropped in 1977, to take effect this year, the 800th anniversary of his death.

Ironically, it falls on a Sunday this year, so Italians won’t get an actual day off until 2027.

Who was Francis, what did he do, and why is he remarkable?

Francis’ Early Life

He was born in Assisi, Italy, to a wealthy silk merchant and baptized Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone, meaning John, son of Peter, son of Bernardone (“big Bernard”… which means bear or brave).

His mother gave him the name Giovanni, but his father, Pietro, called him Francesco, perhaps because the businessman traveled frequently to France and succeeded there in business. His mother, Pica di Bourlemont, was said to be a noblewoman from Provençe in southern France.

The traditional birthplace of Francis is now the Oratorio di San Francesco Piccolino (“tiny”). Author’s photo

The boy was intelligent, handsome, and chivalrous. He was what we’d now call “a clothes horse,” delighted by expensive, colorful clothing. He loved the troubadours’ performances and the culture of his mother’s Provençe.

Francis’ Turning Point

The “story of the beggar” says that while Francis worked in the marketplace for his father, selling cloth and velvet, a beggar approached him and asked for alms.

After finishing his business, Francis pursued the beggar and gave him all the money in his purse. He was becoming disillusioned with his lavish lifestyle and his father’s wealth.

Francis the Soldier

At 19 or 20, while serving on a military expedition against Perugia, Francis was captured at the Battle of Collestrada (1202) and held for almost a year as a prisoner of war in Perugia. While captive and ill, he re-evaluated his life.

Two years after returning to Assisi, he set out to join the army of Walter III, Count of Brienne, in Apulia, but turned back after a vision in Assisi that made him lose interest in his worldly lifestyle.

Francis’ Pilgrimage to Rome

Giving up the feasting and sports of his former lifestyle, he made a pilgrimage to Rome, a practice that remains popular today. There, he prayed for God’s guidance. Back in Assisi, while praying before the crucifix at San Damiano, a deserted chapel left in ruins near Assisi, he heard a voice from the crucifix telling him to rebuild the church:

“Francis, go and repair my house which, as you see, is all in ruins!”

San Damiano, near Assisi, Italy. Image: Wikipedia

While working with others to physically restore the church, he came to the realization that the message he’d received was to restore the entire Catholic Church, not just one structure.

Because he repaired San Damiano with money from cloth taken from his father’s shop without permission, the city consuls cited Francis. He renounced his inheritance and patrimony before Bishop Guido of Assisi; some reports say he left “without a word peeled off his garments, even removing his breeches and restored them to his father,” but the bishop covered him with his own cloak.

Francis wandered as a beggar, living as a penitent and restoring other ruined chapels around Assisi.

Francis in Film

“Zeffirelli’s story of the wild youth who brought the world of pomp and power to its knees.” Brother Sun, Sister Moon movie poster. Image: Wikipedia

Franco Zeffirelli, famous for his 1968 hit film Romeo and Juliet, made a 1972 biopic about Francis. It was called Brother Sun, Sister Moon, the name taken from Francis’ “Canticle of the Sun,” which contains the lines:

”Praised be You, my Lord, with all Your creatures, especially Sir Brother Sun,
who is the day through whom You give us light.
And he is beautiful and radiant with great splendor, of You Most High, he bears the likeness.

“Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars,
in the heavens You have made them bright, precious and fair.”

The Scottish folk-rock singer-songwriter Donovan wrote and sang songs from the film’s score, ethereal and haunting.

The reason Zeffirelli made the film was that he and a dear friend, Gina Lollobrigida, had been involved in a 1969 automobile accident near Orvieto, resulting in her suffering a broken kneecap and him suffering 32 skull fractures. Zeffirelli, a devout Catholic who believed a miracle had saved them, prayed for recovery and later made a film about Francis’ life (and the 1977 TV series Jesus of Nazareth).

Brother Sun, Sister Moon (DVD). Image: IMDB

Francis’ Later Life

After settling at the little chapel of St. Mary of the Angels, which he had restored, he nursed lepers in colonies near Assisi. Hearing a sermon on Matthew 10:7, 9-11

And proclaim as you go, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ … Acquire no gold or silver or copper for your belts, no bag for your journey, or two tunics or sandals or a staff, for the laborer deserves his food. And whatever town or village you enter, find out who is worthy in it and stay there until you depart.

…he felt inspired to devote himself to a life of poverty. He removed his shoes, discarded his staff, and clothed himself in a coarse wool tunic common to the poorest peasant; he secured it with a three-knotted rope, later understood to signify poverty, chastity, and obedience. He began preaching to people in the countryside.

After a year, he attracted 11 followers, and they lived in the deserted leper colony of Rivo Torto near Assisi.

In 1209, Francis composed a simple rule for his mendicant disciples (“friars”), called the Regula primitiva or “Primitive Rule”, which came from verses in the Bible. The rule was

“to follow the teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ and to walk in his footsteps.”

He then led his followers to Rome to seek permission from Pope Innocent III to found a new religious order.

Confirmation of the Rule, attributed to Giotto. Pope Innocent III approving the statutes of the Order of the Franciscans. Image: Wikipedia

The pope, it is said, dreamed of Francis holding up the Lateran Basilica of St. John (the seat of the bishop of Rome) and endorsed Francis’ order on April 16, 1209 (some date it 1210).

The Franciscan Order was known as the Order of Friars Minor (“Lesser Brothers”) or the Seraphic Order. The group was tonsured (shaving some hair from the top of the head as a sign of humility), and Francis was later ordained deacon. Based at the Porziuncola (St. Mary of the Angels), they preached in Assisi and the Umbrian countryside. As their numbers grew, they spread across Italy.

Master of St. Francis. Francis preaching to the birds outside of Bevagna. Image: Wikipedia

Popular stories persist about Francis preaching to birds and animals, whom he called “brothers” and “sisters”… and even persuading a ferocious wolf to stop attacking the townspeople and livestock of Gubbio; in exchange, the townspeople would feed him.

Francis talking to the wolf of Gubbio, by Carl Weidemeyer, 1911. Image: Wikipedia

Francis and Clare

Judi Bowker as St. Clare in Brother Sun, Sister Moon. Image: IMDB

A young noblewoman, Clare (Chiara Offreduccio), heard Francis preaching in Assisi and sought to live like Francis and his followers. Francis gave her a religious habit similar to his own and eventually lodged her, her younger sister Caterina (later Agnes), and other young women in huts or cells at San Damiano, thereby establishing the Order of Poor Clares.

For those who could not leave their family or work, Francis established the Order of Brothers and Sisters of Penance, made up of laity or clergy who took no religious vows but joined the Order, known now as the Secular Franciscan Order. It spread worldwide.

Francis and the Fifth Crusade

In 1219, Francis went to Egypt hoping to convert the Muslim Sultan al-Malik al-Kamil at Damietta. During a ceasefire between the Sultan and the Crusaders, the Sultan brought Francis before him, where Francis preached to Muslims and returned unharmed. From there, he may have traveled to Acre in the Holy Land. Franciscans have been present in the Holy Land since then.

Returning to Italy, he traveled to Sicily in the south and as far north as Bologna. He suffered from trachoma, an eye disease he likely got while in Egypt. He spent his last days dictating his spiritual Testament and died on Saturday, October 3, 1226, singing “Voce mea ad Dominum clamavi” from the Latin Vulgate in Psalm 141. In the modern English translation of the Bible, it’s Psalm 142:

With my voice I cry out to the LORD;
with my voice I plead for mercy to the LORD.

I pour out my complaint before him;
I tell my trouble before him.

Francis: Patron Saint

The Church canonized him as St. Francis in 1228, just two years after his death. You can thank him for the modern Christmas crèche (crib) scene of Mary, Joseph, and the baby Jesus, after he set it up in Greccio in 1223.

Francis was named the patron saint of Italy (along with Catherine of Siena). He is also the patron saint of animals, families, peace, and needleworkers.

In 1979, he was declared the patron saint of ecology, in keeping with the Canticle of the Sun. You’ll often see statues of Francis placed in gardens and parks.

A garden statue of Francis of Assisi with birds. Image: Wikipedia

Assisi Today

Almost two decades ago, as I approached Assisi, I noticed the Basilica di San Francesco on the hill, along with the Sacro Convento, a Franciscan monastery begun in 1228.

Assisi. Author’s photo

During Francis’ time, this location outside the city walls was called the “Hill of Hell” (Colle dell’Inferno), where criminals were hanged on gallows.

Basilica of St. Francis and monastery. Image: Wikipedia

Francis insisted on being buried here outside Assisi’s city walls because Jesus was killed like a criminal outside the ancient city of Jerusalem.

Connected to the basilica is the Franciscan friary (monastery), called the Sacro Convento (“Holy Convent”), with numerous lofty buttresses supporting the basilica above. Inside the friary is a beautiful courtyard.

Franciscan Friary courtyard. Author’s photo

For the first 200 years of its operation, the basilica library was said to rival the Sorbonne (now the University of Paris) and Avignon (the 14th-century French papal palace) in the number of manuscripts.

Basilica of Saint Clare of Assisi. Image: Wikipedia

A twenty-minute walk from the Franciscan basilica is the Basilica di Santa Chiara, which contains the remains of St. Clare of Assisi, 

Back at the Franciscan basilica, on the hill, now renamed Colle del Paradiso, Francis’ grave lies in the Crypt inside.

Francis’ final resting place in the Basilica of St. Francis in Assisi, Italy. Image: Wikipedia

San Francisco Near Santa Clara

Spanish colonists founded two cities along California’s West Coast, and Junípero Serra‘s Franciscans established missions named after saints.

San Francisco is situated at the tip of the peninsula bordering the Bay. The mission was originally named San Francisco de Asís. The mission later became known as Mission Dolores, after the nearby creek called Our Lady of Sorrows.

San Francisco to Santa Clara. Image: Google Maps

About an hour south, at the southern end of the Bay in the center of Silicon Valley, Santa Clara was originally the Mission Santa Clara de Asís.

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian
billpetro.com