Delving into the life of Saint Francis is a complicated undertaking for several reasons: the variety (which also means partial discordance) of the sources, their distance in time, a boundless secondary literature of studies by modern authors… In short, a feat that would discourage even a well-equipped scholar. The most famous of today’s popular scholars, whose conferences are attended by young people and adults, attempted and succeeded: Alessandro Barbero. In the volume Saint Francis (recently released by Editori Laterza) the popular medievalist tackles the task himself and also in an original way, unraveling what is known about the saint starting from the seven sources closest to him in time: from the Testament of the Poverello of Assisi to Major legend of Saint Bonaventure, passing through Thomas of Celano, the Legend of the three companions, the Memorial, the Compilation of Assisi and the “Francis of Saint Clare” (the one that emerges of the saint).
Each source is told and commented on separately in a chapter, so we find episodes that are taken up several times because they appear in multiple sources, often with different nuances and intentions. And here emerges the thoroughness of the historian (62 pages of notes, placed at the back of the book), who reconstructs the thread of the different interpretations, tries to go back to the most original meanings of the episodes, well contextualized in the era to which they belong, the Middle Ages. The result is a multifaceted, modern portrait, like many refractions of a single object (and it cannot be otherwise, since we are dealing with witnesses who have handed it down to us according to their understanding, as well as according to their intentions).
A cultured Francesco even in its most human aspects, in its anxieties, even in its limits, also highlighting the difficulty of managing an “inconvenient” spiritual legacy even when the saint was alive. A Francis who is harsh in some respects, not at all hagiographic, but no less fascinating and powerful than other narratives. A Francis who is not “pulled by the jacket” to make him fit with modern sensibilities and expectations (environmentalism, interreligious dialogue…).
What comes out battered is the narrative of Saint Bonaventure: for the omissions of uncomfortable or problematic aspects, for the overload of moralization and spiritualization.
The sources of the previous chapters therefore stand out all the fresher, as fortunately for us they have reached us and outline a personality that was deeply imprinted in the memory of who witnessed his evangelical radicality.
A book that will require a little more effort than many other more informative ones, but much more satisfying and capable of making us reflect on a figure who never ceases to fascinate, after eight centuries.
