Francis of Assisi

About this figure

Francis of Assisi was born around 1181 in the Italian town of Assisi, the son of a prosperous cloth merchant, and spent his youth pursuing the pleasures and ambitions typical of a young man of his class, including a brief period as a soldier and a stint as a prisoner of war after a battle with the nearby city of Perugia. In his early twenties he underwent a gradual conversion, marked by experiences of illness, a vision at the ruined church of San Damiano, and a decisive public break with his father, in which he renounced his inheritance and, according to early accounts, stripped off his clothes in the town square to signify his rejection of his family's wealth.

He began living in radical poverty, repairing abandoned chapels and preaching repentance, and was soon joined by companions who adopted the same way of life. In 1209 he obtained informal approval from Pope Innocent III for a simple rule of life centered on poverty, chastity, and obedience, founding what became the Order of Friars Minor, commonly known as the Franciscans; a parallel order for women was founded with Clare of Assisi, and a lay order was established for those unable to leave secular life entirely. Francis preached widely across Italy and, according to tradition, traveled to Egypt during the Fifth Crusade in 1219, where he met the Sultan al-Kamil in an attempt at peaceful dialogue.

In 1224, while praying on Mount La Verna, Francis is recorded by his early biographers to have received the stigmata, marks corresponding to the wounds of the crucified Christ, which he bore for the remaining two years of his life. Shortly before his death he composed the Canticle of the Sun, a hymn praising God through the natural world, written in the Umbrian vernacular rather than Latin. He died in 1226 and was canonized just two years later, in 1228, by Pope Gregory IX.

Written by Epoch Voices. Not the figure’s own words.