Episode 13: Assisi - St. Francis of Assisi - How A Little Man Changed The World

Bonjardinum, I'm Dr. Rocky Regiro. Join me in rebuilding the Renaissance and making art and history come to life. Welcome to the Rebuilding the Renaissance podcast, your guide to the art and history of Italy, from the glory of Rome to the magnificence of the Renaissance. And now here's your host, Dr. Rocky Regiro. Bonjardinum, everyone. Our subject today is the figure who I, along with a lot of other people, believe is responsible for changing socially philosophically almost the medieval world. And in many ways, we're responsible for the later artistic movement that we call the Renaissance. And I think it surprises people to find out that this figure was not an artist, it was not some political figure, what have you instead, but was this little man from a town called Assisi. A-S-S-I-S-I, please do not pronounce it Assisi is most Americans do, there is no bully. And the man's name, of course, was Franchise School, we know him better, as Saint Francis of Assisi. Now, if any of you are in Italy, I highly recommend visiting his hometown of Assisi, the one because of the extraordinary artwork, but two, because there's this unique sense of spirituality in the place. It really is one of the few places that people still go to for religious motives, not just artistic and touristic or what have you as well, but to pay homage to the body of this little saint, which is intumed under his anonymous Basilica, right, the Basilica of San Franchise, go in Assisi. Now, if you do visit Assisi, what you discover is that it is a hill town, okay, now consider that the topography of Italian cities and towns reveal much of their history. In other words, if you visit an Italian town that's built up on a hill, odds are that it is pre-Roman in origin, okay. And the names of the various Italian regions in Italy actually come from the names of the peoples who inhabited those areas before the Romans came along and conquered it all. In other words, when you visit Assisi, you are in the region of Umria, because the people who lived in that area were known as Umrians, right. When you are in Chinquete today or Genova, you are in the region of Laguria, because the people who lived there were called Lagurians, right. When you are in Milan, you are in the region of Lombardi, and the people who lived there were called Lombards, right. The Veneto, which is the region around Venice, occupied or inhabited by the Venetite, you are in Florence, right. You are in Tuscany, and the ancient name of Tuscany was Etrurea, because the Etruscans lived there. And the advantage, of course, of building up on a hill was protection. It's much easier to protect yourself from a higher vantage point than it is from a lower. So, hill towns like Siena, like Volterra, like San Jimi Niano, like Perugia, like Assisi are all pre-Roman and origin. If instead you venture in an Italian city or town that's built on a plain as Florence and Pisa and Ravenna and Luca are, then you know that the city instead is Roman, okay. And what gave the Romans the luxury of building in large, vulnerable, open plans, well very simply that their defense was offense. In other words, they're so busy controlling the whole damn world. They don't have to worry about protecting the borders of an individual city, right. They were pushing their territories well past obviously the Italian peninsula. And so the idea of hill town means pre-Roman, flat city instead means Roman, okay. And Assisi was not particularly important in the 12th and 13th centuries, right. But became important because of this particular figure. Now, the first and most important thing to discuss about Saint Francis of Assisi is the fact that he was not born with the Christian name Francis, okay. When Saint Francis was born, we're told in the year 1182. Now, we don't know with certainty whether he was born in that year, but his biographer's claim that he was and that he would die eventually in the year 1226. Now, I'm poor because if you add up those figures, you find that Saint Francis died according to tradition at the age of 44, right. A double digit age, right. Another important figure who died at double digit age was Jesus Christ at the age of 33. And in fact, as we go now through Saint Francis' biography, what you'll discover is much of his biography echoes the life of Christ as recorded in the Gospels, right. In other words, Francis was often referred to as the alter crestus as the other Jesus, right. Oasis if he was a type of second coming or what have you as well. When Francis was born into a very wealthy family, his father's name was Pierro Bernard Donan, right. His mother was Mona Pica. They were two of the wealthiest in the city of Assisi, and their wealth had been accumulated through the textile trade. In fact, most of Francis' father's business was concentrated in France, where the French lived, right. The Italian word for French is Frenchese, right. French people would be Frenchese. And because Pierro Bernard Donan had made so much money dealing with French merchants, he named his son after the Frenchese, which in the middle ages was pronounced Frenchese. And so Giovanni, Bernard Donan, Giovanni was in fact Francis' real name, went through life with the name Franciesco, right. So technically his Christian name was Giovanni, Franciesco was his nickname. And as I mentioned, Francis of Assisi was born a rich kid, right. And so his father, one of the wealthiest textile merchants in the city, and were told that Francis, who was one of the most celebrated penitent saints in history. And if you're not familiar with the term penitent, what it means essentially is a Christian saint who spent part of his life or her life in sin, only to then repent, right. And then live out the rest of his or her life in piety. And I think many of you are directly or indirectly familiar with many of these penitent saints, right. Mary Magdalene, as perhaps the most celebrated prostitute, then follower of Christ, St. Augustine, who was a party animal for the first part of his life, but then going on to become one of the doctors of the church, right. So this is easy, who were told lived the first part of his life in the proverbial fast lane, right. Fast cars, fast women, fast parties. Now this may sound like hyperbole, but it's actually not many of his biographers talk about how Francis would very often cover the bill, pay the bill for all of his buddies as they were drinking in taverns of what have you as well. And the story goes that Francis, like most of his peers, right. In other words, today I think if you ask most 18 year olds what they want to do when they grow up, they want to be a basketball star, they want to be a movie star, they want to be a rock star, right. They want fame, they want wealth, it would have you really wasn't any different at the end of the 12th century. But the way you did it was essentially through a military career, right. In other words, you went off, you fought in battles and you came back home, you had your war stories, right. Literally to share with your friends into dazzle the ladies and what have you as well. So the story goes that in the year 1202, right when Francis was a whopping 20 years of age, he actually enlisted in the civic militia of a season. Now CZ was constantly fighting with its local rival, a city still celebrated today named Peruja. And the story goes that Francis enlisted hoping, of course, that he would have great military success or what have you. He went out onto the battlefield of coal list rather the battle of coal list rather which took place in the year 1202. And the amazing thing is that if you go to a CZ today as you're approaching the town of a CZ, you actually pass through the town of coal list rather. And I find that amazing because this is stuff that I read about years ago and then suddenly I'm in the lead and I find that these places are real. This is not mythology, right. This is history instead. And everything went sour for Francis that day instead of winning the dare what have you Francis was actually captured on the battlefield and in prison. You see because rich kids aren't killed on the battlefield. There were much more alive than they are dead because of course they could then procure ransom for their release. So the story goes that for the next year of his life, Francis was actually in prison in a perusion dungeon. And according to his biographies, this is where his conversion began. We're told that Francis first encountered holy scripture during his days in this medieval prison. Now I, a bit more realistic in my approach would instead contest that obviously not much else to do when one is in a medieval dungeon at the beginning of the 13th century. Eventually Francis was freed. We're told his father actually paid his ransom. He was freed. And when he returned to a CZ, he was not that happy, go lucky guy who had gone out. And again, most of his biographers attributing this to the beginning of his spiritual conversion. My interpretation is you spend a year in a medieval dungeon and tell me how you feel once you leave. But anyway, Francis was much more contemplated. It was much more introverted. He wasn't that socializing butterfly that he'd been before. And you can understand why. I mean, he had this mission in mind. He thought he was going to achieve it now. He's a bit lost. And we're told that he spent more and more of his time outside the walls of a CZ. In a particular area called the Port Zuncola. The Port Zuncola, which is still there, was a Benedictine monastery just outside the city. And there were told that Benedictine monks were quite fatherly to Francis, giving him advice, giving him support, one have use. And it was there that Francis now searching for what it was that he was supposed to do. Well, supposedly the story goes that he had a dream in the meantime. And in this dream, Jesus Christ appeared to him and demonstrated. concentrated a palace full of arms as in weapons, swords and shields and spears and maces and what have you as well And what you're gonna discover in this podcast is that Francis was not necessarily the sharpest knife in the drawers The expression goes and he very often misinterpreted divine message and omen in this case He did Jesus was not saying look you need these weapons to go and kill people Jesus was essentially using those weapons as a Spiritual metaphor right in other words these were the weapons with which Francis and his followers would eventually go out in conquered souls Right converting those souls over to the just faith of Christianity This is the message that Francis would really only discover later on for now He thought Jesus was saying look reenlist get back in the army go out there and kick some butt Right, this is essentially how he saw the message So the story goes that Francis enlists in a mercenary army and leaves the seasy to head to the southeastern part of Italy known as puria, okay, and there was engaging in the army of a mercenary general what have you this is in the year 12.04, okay, so he's now whopping 22 years of age and on his way there he became very ill right now from the Symptoms described by his blogger first it seems that Francis was infected with malaria at this point in his life right and he returned to a seasy Debunked and depressed right as you can imagine he tried a second time he didn't work out Now he has a very serious illness to boot and again spending more and more of his time out in isolation And one of the places that he began for Quentin was this rundown dilapidated little chapel outside of a seasy called San Damiano, okay, and inside of this ruined chapel There was a painted crucifix right and we told that Francis would go there daily to pray to the crucifix and One day in the year 12.06 He's now whopping 24 years of age the story goes that the crucifix actually came to life and spoke to Francis These now famous words Jesus spoke from the crucifix and said go Francis and Rebuild my house which has fallen into ruin Go and rebuild my house which has fallen into ruin these were the words According to Francis's biography spoken by the crucifix now Francis again Mission interpreting the message and so we're told that he went to the nearest home depot And I bought a few pallets of bricks a couple bags of cement and began to repair this little chapel of San Damiano When in fact Jesus was not talking about that church Jesus was talking about what today we call the catholic church which back in the early 13th century was the Latin Christian church which by this time had become so corrupt and so materialistic right nepotism and Semini and indulgences and what have you as well that Jesus wanted Francis to Restore and to rejuvenate that church Francis didn't quite know this yet, right? So the story goes that to fund his little Reconstruction project of the chapel Francis actually began to go into his father's textile warehouses and take some of the best cloth and Then sell it off and with the revenue by building materials and while he was at it We're told he would take some of that cloth and just randomly give it away to the poor of a seasy as well Right now you can imagine how happy Francis's father must have been and his son doing them essentially stealing from his father And in fact the analogy I used with my students is and I encourage them to go into mom's closet and pull out one of her Valentino dresses and just give it away to the salvation army just to measure her reaction right and you can imagine the rage on the part of poor Pierreau-Berdinardon and the story goes that you know Francis at this point has completely cut himself off He's living outside of a seasy. He's rebuilding this little church living You know like a bum to be very frank and candid about it and one day when he was walking through the central square of a seasy Just happened to come across his father and his father simply went ballistic on Francis literally attacked him right trying to beat him up And was restrained by some bystanders and the story goes that Francis was so shocked by the violence of his father That he actually reached down and removed the robe that he was wearing right a robe which had belonged to his father I'm sure it was very expensive material that he was wearing and he threw the robe at his father instead They're completely naked in the central piazza of a seasy Supposedly turning his hands and his eyes up to heaven and saying now I can truly say that I have only one father in heaven Okay, in this particular moment Francis's life is seen as the moment where he renounces his worldly Goods in other words one of the important things about the Francis can order is that they would take a vow of poverty Right, and this was a very important and revolutionary aspect as well And so the only thing Francis had left was that robe and he just taken off throwing it back at his father It says now that he is simply a child of God and the story goes that from this point on all Francis would wear was a burlap sack Right he grabbed a discarded potato sack or something like that punched a hole through the bottom holes through the sides slipped it over himself Took a discarded length of rope wrapped it around his waist tied it into a knot and voila the Franciscan habit was born right we're told that it looked like an action sack cloth So presumably it was more on the gray than it was on the brown side as we see it today But this is essentially where the Franciscan habit came the burlap sack and the length of rope and Francis then returns to San Damiano to continue his reconstruction project Okay, now at first all of his peers had thought that Francis had simply gone off of the deep end if you get my dream I mean this is a kid who had it all right I mean he was the prom king he had early acceptance to Harvard law You know, he's dating the cheerleader et cetera, so he gave it all up and now he's living like this savage animal out in the countryside wearing a potato sack barefoot unshawored unsanitary would have you as well, but His conviction actually convinced many of his peers at what he was doing with something special and so one by one the youth of a seasy joined Francis and Formed what essentially back in the 1960s in the United States. We would call a commune Right lots of barefoot people lots of scrubby hair and beards, you know Psychedelic mushrooms, et cetera, et cetera, and they're rebuilding this little church, right? So the idea of living in this kind of Christian utopian society right that they're in Francis's were you know like Jesus had said before him technically that they needed to live Like the birds of the air right birds do not drive BMW's They don't carry Louis Vuitton bags and they don't wear Rolex watches But yet God provides them with everything that they need and that is how he and his followers were going to live and in fact It wasn't just men right now again We kind of take it for granted of course that men and women were equal But in the 13th century you can imagine obviously the hierarchy of gender and what have you But we're told that many of a seasy's Female youth joined them as well and in fact the most celebrated of all of course was Claire, right Claire of a seasy now In many ways Claire is even more impressive historically than Francis I absolutely adore her from an historical perspective because she risked life and limb to join Francis She came from a noble or a nurse to Cratic family and her father was so Horrified by this lifestyle that she chosen that he actually tried to kill her right in fact Actually shaped her head in penance when she joined Francis converting over and later on I mean just so much but perhaps we'll dedicate an entire podcast to Claire later on as well But this is the community that Francis had created essentially in the second half of the first decade of the 13th century Okay, and they lived that way for a while and then Francis realized that it wasn't enough for them to just sort of live By example they needed to do more so Francis decided that he and his followers needed to go out and spread the good news of Christ to preach it around the world problem is that in the 13th century You can't just stand up on a street corner and say okay, you know here. No, no, no, no You need to have authorization otherwise you could be accused of heresy and of course punishment for heresy Was being burned alive at the stake So the story goes that Francis decides to go to Rome and to ask the then reigning Pope who was innocent the third for permission For him and his followers to be able to preach come and the story goes that while he was approaching Rome The then Pope had a dream in which he saw this young scrappy looking guy with long hair and a beard wearing a potato sack and a length of rope around his ways holding up the church of saint John Lactarin right if you remember for one of my earlier podcasts I told you that when the Pope sat as bishop of Rome That is his cathedral and then up until 1450 That saint John Latterin was the seat of papal power not Saint Peter's as it is today So he saw this bum-ish looking guy holding up the church which represented papal power So imagine Pope innocent the third surprise when you know a few days later a few weeks later The same bumish looking character Walks into his papal audience right into his papal chamber and says look Pope I'm looking for authority on authorization so that I and my followers can preach right and of course innocent gave him that and just about everything else and so in the year 1209 The Franciscan order was approved okay as a lay L.A.Y order now this is important This means that technically they're not priests right not at this point And it was later on the Franciscan order would be clericalized in other words that its members could be ordained Aspes but not yet and this is an important point because Francis of Assisi would in fact never be ordained He did not deem himself worthy to handle the Eucharist He did not deem himself worthy to hear confession or what have you is what so it's just testimony to the modesty of this Extraordinary saint who never became a priest because he didn't think he was worthy to become a priest So in 1209 the Franciscan order comes into existence the fratiminoti right the minor brothers as they were called And at this point they're given carte blanche to go out over the world and to preach the good news This is the start okay So Francis goes back to his easy to share the good news and it immediately begins to dispatch his followers throughout the world Now Francis and these followers essentially is missionaries right going from place to place to spread the good news And one of the places that Francis went was Egypt where he spent two years of his life Actually is a guest of the then Sultan of Egypt his name was Malik El Malik and They're studied with great fervor an interest the local religion called Islam Right, and this is important because Francis really was one of the first figures historically to essentially claim that the three major monotheistic religions right Christianity, Judaism and Islam were sister religions and in reality they are so much of all three intertwines with the other and Francis that instead of cutting each other to pieces as they had for centuries They should become sister religions and this begins this tradition of kind of Franciscan World unity through peace in fact every fall I don't remember the exact date of this But there is a world religion day in a seasy where representatives of all the world's major religions Including Native Americans who show up with their headdress and what have you as well sit down at a table in a seasy and talk about unity and peace Through religion it's a pretty extraordinary thing that that philosophy is still alive You know some eight centuries later or what have you anyway? We'll talk about what happens later on we'll talk about Joltos fresco cycle in the Church of Santa Corocha in Florence Which actually illustrates certain events from his life, okay? But we get to that a little bit later on so this is one of the major Revolutions of Francis's life but more importantly and this is really what connects us back to the Renaissance and the whole idea of the Renaissance Francis's revolution was his attitude and approach towards the natural world Around him, okay in the sense that he Changed the way we perceived Our physical reality in other words before Francis came along the Catholic Church was preaching what today we would call it trans indental philosophy right in other words Everything physical and real was bad material was bad, okay? Anything that was not God was bad Hmm and that essentially it was an escapist Philosophy in other words the worse off you are down here the better off you're gonna be up there Keep your eye on the goal and that goal was everlasting life in heaven right? So that essentially this physical world in which we live was nothing more than a prolonged Temptation leading us off the path of righteousness and to sin and what have you well? All comes Francis of a season well hold on a second this physical and natural world around us was given to us by God So we shouldn't be ignoring it or or seeing it as something bad We should be celebrating it instead so veering away from this idea that you know man was put here to dominate nature as Described in the book of Genesis with Adam and Eve, but Francis saying no, no humanity is no more important than the insect is No less important than the mammal what have you so in other words We are part it didn't use the word but if the word existed He would have of an ecosystem and that humanity was meant to live in harmony with the natural world right and Francis Would would celebrate this appreciation of the natural world in his famous Pentacles right where he actually personifies nature he talks about brother son and sister moon right of sister water and brother fire and the idea And the sons rather 1960s right if you sit down to think about it But that is essentially the idea so he was changing the way we perceive the natural world while he was revolutionizing the church And while he was performing miracle upon miracle upon miracle Now consider that the most important event which occurred in Francis's life was his alleged receiving of the stigma to in the year 1224 We're told in a place called La Verna Okay, La Verna is essentially halfway between Florence and Arrezzo Is one of the most magical places I've ever been to it's another one of these places We just got this extraordinary sense of energy and again I'm not preaching here, but it's just you know whether you're Christian or Muslim or Jewish or Atheist or what have him I mean obviously these are places that are just charged with spirituality While he was there preaching to Saint Michael the Archangel We're told that this beautiful male figure appeared in the sky supported by Seraphim and that this male figured open up his hands and from his hands feet and side Raise of light or what I like to define as laser beams shot down and Struck Francis in the corresponding places and so Francis the first Christian saint ever to allegedly have received the Stig Mata now I say allegedly because this is obviously something you believe if you want to There was allegedly an eyewitness to the overall event as well not stigma when you stigmatize something right you mark Something and that's what the stigma is Francis was marked by the wounds of Christ Okay, now I want you to understand that since Saint Francis many Catholic saints have allegedly received the stigma But Francis was allegedly the first to have this particular physical phenomena occur to him, okay? And it's not just you know topic of conversation at par Hey cool I got holes in my hands and feet what the stigma to actually means is that you receive the wounds But then you also share in the physical suffering of Jesus Christ In other words you feel the pain that Christ felt when he was crucified and if you are a Christian which means that technically your very existence is dedicated to Christ you cannot come into any closer union with Jesus Then in sharing with his physical suffering, okay? So this is the meaning of the stigma to and Francis was allegedly the first and you want we'll talk about various Representations of this event particularly by Jalto later on so the years 1224 and by this time It seems that Francis's lifestyle Francis Zillens begin to catch up with him now consider it You know Francis would do radical things were told he would throw himself into frozen lakes He would roll around and thorn versus saying that even the pain that nature afforded him was a beautiful thing But remember the malaria right and the other thing that he did this ultra-Christmas mentality that I mentioned was that he Supposedly would succure lepers come coming direct contact with lepers, but never be infected by the disease right So some people saw this as miraculous now recently I actually read a biography on Francis of his easy It's more of a medical history than was anything else and one of the comments made by the author was that perhaps the reason He didn't manifest leprosy was that he was carrying the bacteria for both leprosy and for tuberculosis at the same time So he was actually carrying both diseases, but that they canceled out the others respective symptoms Okay, and that might be a rather explicit scientific explanation as to what was going on But you might also define it as miraculous, right that something like that could actually take place now The malaria would eventually catch up with Francis and he would eventually lose his sight and if you ever read about the horrendous Medical treatment that he received because he was a celebrity, right? So many physicians and doctors were trying to cure him of his blindness by doing things like sticking hot pokers in his ears or Burning all the skin around his eyes hoping to stimulate so I mean the suffering he went through was just Horrible in medieval but also modern terms as well and then eventually Francis would die in the year 26 as I mentioned earlier at the ripe old age of 44 Okay, now consider he dies in the year 12 26 and was canonized Two years later in the year 12 28 a two year canonization period That's a pretty extraordinary thing Considering that the Catholic Church has a rule in place where essentially you have to wait five years before an Investigation can even begin for a canonization candidate, right? And then of course the investigation takes years as well and it seems that Francis was just so popular and so spiritual that the pope Decided to then just bypass all this and this is Gregory the ninth He decided to bypass all this and essentially have him canonized immediately now I used to erroneously say that Francis's canonization period was the shortest in history and then I find out I was wrong Okay, because actually the shortest canonization period in history belongs to the number two guy in the Francis In order whose name was saint Anthony of Padua right who was dead in 1221 and canonized in the year 12 22 and I think the only figure in Catholic history who had a chance to kind of burn these guys or beat these guys in terms of the Brevity of the canonization period would have been JP 2 Okay, now consider I was in the piazza the night that he died and the enthusiasm was just palpable right Santo Subito was what they were all chanting in other words saint immediately in other words Bypass all the bureaucracy and let's just slap the title of saint on JP 2 But of course ratsinger being ratsinger beating Pope Benedict XVI which is why he was elected right to kind of curb that wave of almost rock star Enthusiasm decided to then implement the five-year plan if you want to call it that and then Pope John Paul the second only being canonized nine years after his death right in 2014 when both he and Pope John the 23rd Vatican to Pope John the 23rd where canonized and buried in the upper Basilica of St. Peter But you know just to give you an idea again of how the canonization time is kind of reflective of the importance of the saint and Francis essentially dying and then two years later being recognized not as Francis of a C.C But as saint Francis of a C.C. And it's right around this time that his Basilica Emerges as well and that Basilica which I'll talk about in my next podcast really is nothing more than a large architectural Reliquary, okay, in other words I like to talk about it as the sort of medieval saint Peter's Basilica, right in other words The reason it's there is because Francis's body is buried underneath like the recent Saint Peter's Basilica is in Rome is because Peter according to tradition is buried there as well and Like at Saint Peter's at the beginning of the 16th century when Michael and Lohan Raphael and but I'm auntie and Lann Ardon all these great artists went down to pay homage to Peter So too, at the beginning of the 13th and 14th centuries, did artists like Chima Buen, Simone Martini, and Peter Lorenzetti migrate to Asezi in pilgrimage, artistic pilgrimage to decorate the walls of the church. And in my next podcast, we'll talk about the church itself, we'll talk about its decoration, and we'll talk about my rather dramatic experience in 1997 when I was inside of the Basilica of San Francisco when the ground began shaking and the roof came caving down with stay tuned for more. For more information on lectures and programs in the United States, art history tours in Italy, and for online video lectures, visit RockyRigero.com.