THE IMAGE OF ST FRANCIS

An important new study of the way in which St Francis’ image was recorded in literature, documents, architecture and art. St Francis was a man whose personality was deliberately stamped on his Order and Rosalind Brooke explores how the stories told by Francis’ companions were at once brilliantly vivid portrayals of the man as well as guides to how the Franciscan way of life ought to be led. She also examines how after St Francis’ death a great monument was erected to him in the Basilica at Assisi and how this came to reflect in stone and stained glass and fresco the manner in which some popes and leading friars believed his memory should be fostered. Highly illustrated throughout, including colour and black and white plates, this book will be essential reading for medievalists and art historians as well as anyone interested in St Francis and the Franciscan movement.

ROSALIND B. BROOKE is a Senior Member of Clare Hall, Cambridge. Throughout her academic career she has lectured and taught at various universities including University College London and Cambridge University. Her publications include The Coming of the Friars (1975) and Popular Religion in the Middle Ages (with C. N. L. Brooke, 1984).

Frontispiece:Cimabue, St Francis, Basilica of St Francis, Lower Church, detail of fresco of Madonna and child with St Francis – see p. 304 (© www.Assisi.de. Photo Stefan Diller).

THE IMAGE OF
ST FRANCIS

RESPONSES TO SAINTHOOD IN THE
THIRTEENTH CENTURY

ROSALIND B. BROOKE

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo

Cambridge University Press
The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 2RU, UK

Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York

www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521782913

© Rosalind B. Brooke 2006

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without
the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2006

Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge

A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library

ISBN-13 978-0-521-78291-3 hardback
ISBN-10 0-521-78291-0 hardback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or
third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such
websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

CONTENTS

PLATES

COLOUR PLATES

BLACK AND WHITE PLATES

FIGURES

1	Bologna, Plan of the Dominican Church	71
2	Florence, Plan of Santa Maria Novella	72
3	Istanbul, Kalenderhane Camii, St Francis Chapel, reconstruction	206
4	St Francis frescoes: reconstruction of fragments	208
5	St Francis frescoes: diagram of programme	208
6	St Francis frescoes, scene 5: Preaching to the birds	209
7	St Francis frescoes, scene 3: a healing miracle	211
8	St Francis frescoes: scene 6	213
9	St Francis frescoes, scene 9, death of St Francis	214
10	Assisi, Basilica of St Francis, Upper Church: Plan of windows	307
11	Giovanni Acquaroni, engraving of the tomb of St Francis under the high altar of the Lower Church in the Basilica of St Francis at Assisi, based on the design of the architect B. Lorenzini, made during the excavations of 1818–19	459
12	Giovanni Acquaroni, engraving of the iron cage and the sarcophagus, 1819	463

PREFACE

This book has been long in the making, and I owe many debts. Professor Paul Binski has given constant help and encouragement, and read all the chapters on art and architecture, which have greatly benefited from his advice and criticism. The Reverend Dr Michael Robson, OFM Conv., also has given constant help and encouragement and been most generous in loan of books, in bibliographical advice and in keeping me in touch with his confrères in Assisi. I have had much valued help from Professor Eamon Duffy, Professor Nigel Morgan, Professor André Vauchez, Professor David d’Avray – and many others.

I owe a special debt to the Cambridge University Press, and especially to William Davies, Simon Whitmore and Michael Watson, my editors, to Alison Powell, Sinead Moloney and Sarah Parker, to my copy-editor Frances Brown, to the designer, Jackie Taylor – and to the anonymous readers of the first draft of this book.

Over the years I have had much help in processing from Mrs Edna Pilmer and my husband, Christopher Brooke – who has himself been aided by the resources of Gonville and Caius College.

For permission to quote extensively from my translation of The Writings of Leo, Rufino and Angelo, Companions of St Francis (Oxford Medieval Texts, corr. repr. 1990) I am grateful to Anne Gelling, the Rights Manager and the Delegates of Oxford University Press.

In pursuit of illustrations Dr Michael Robson introduced me to P. Pasquale Magro and P. Gerhard Ruf of the Sacro Convento, Assisi, and Father Ruf introduced me to Herr Stefan Diller of Würzburg. To Stefan Diller I am indebted, as photographer and agent, for the greater part of my illustrations, which include many by Father Ruf. Both of them have generously taken photographs specially for me. Full details of photographers and copyrights are given in the captions, and it is a pleasure to record here the kind and ready help I have had from Stefan Diller, Gerhard Ruf and Pasquale Magro.

Professor Lee Striker provided Plate 23 and Figures 3–9. I have treasured memories of our discussions in the hospitable environment of his home in Philadelphia. Dr Joanna Cannon lent me a print of Plate 75 – and both also generously gave me permission to publish them. Professor Paul Binski lent me the prints for Plates 40–46, and Dr Grazia Visintainer and the Istituto Germanico di Storia dell’Arte, Florence, gave me generous permission to use them. For other plates I am grateful to the Master and Fellows of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and to the Librarian, Dr Christopher de Hammel, and the Sub-Librarian, Mrs Gill Cannell; to the Syndics of the Cambridge University Library, and especially to Mr David Hall and Dr Patrick Zutshi; to the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, and Ms Barbara Furbush; to Mme Anne Lesage and her colleagues and the Réunion des Musées Nationaux, Paris; to Mrs G. M. Reynolds, the University of Michigan and the Michigan-Princeton-Alexandria Expedition to Mount Sinai; and to Signore Abbrescia Santinelli and Face2Face Studio, Rome. To all, my very warm thanks.

I acknowledge innumerable debts to my research assistant, secretary, picture researcher, indexer and husband of fifty-four summers and winters, Christopher – whose unstinting help and exemplary impatience have shaped this book. Idedicate it to him.

CAMBRIDGE
5 November 2005

ABBREVIATIONS

Acta Sanctorum: Acta Sanctorum Bollandiana, Brussels, etc., 1643–

AF: Analecta Franciscana, Quaracchi, 1885–

AFH: Archivum Franciscanum Historicum, Quaracchi and Grottaferrata, 1908–

AFP: Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum, 1931–

ALKG: Archiv für Litteratur- und Kirchengeschichte, ed. H. Denifle and F. Ehrle, 7 vols., Berlin and Freiburg-im-Breisgau, 1885–1900

AP: L’Anonyme de Pérouse, ed. P.-B. Beguin, Paris, 1979

Assisi 1974: La “Questione Francescana” dal Sabatier ad oggi: Atti del I Convegno Internazionale, Assisi, 18–20 ottobre 1973, Società Internazionale di Studi Francescani, Assisi, 1974

Assisi 1978: Assisi al Tempo di San Francesco: Atti del V Convegno Internazionale, Assisi, 13–16 ottobre 1977, Società Internazionale di Studi Francescani, Assisi, 1978

Assisi 1980: Il Tesoro della Basilica di San Francesco ad Assisi, ed. R. B. Fanelli et al., Assisi, 1980

Assisi 1999: The Treasury of St Francis of Assisi, ed. G. Morello and L. B. Kanter, Milan, 1999

Bonav.: Bonaventure, Legenda Maior S. Francisci, in AF X, 555–652

Bonav., Miracula: in AF, X, 627–52

Bonaventure, Opera Omnia, 10 vols., Quaracchi, 1882–1902; and see Bougerol 1994, Delorme 1934

Cat. Générale Ⅳ: Catalogue Générale des Manuscrits des Bibliothèques Publiques de Départements, IV, Paris, 1872

1, 2, 3 Cel.: Thomas of Celano, Vita Prima, Vita Secunda and Tractatus de Miraculis S. Francisci Assisiensis, referred to by paragraphs in the Quaracchi editions, AF X (1926–41), 1–331

Chron. 24 Gen.: ‘Chronicle of the Twenty-Four Generals’ in AF III (1897)

Clare 1985: Claire d’Assise, Écrits, ed. M.-F. Becker, J.-F. Godet and T. Matura, Sources Chrétiennes 325, Paris, 1985

DBI: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Rome, 1960–

Eccleston: Fratris Thomae vulgo dicti de Eccleston Tractatus de adventu fratrum minorum in Angliam, ed. A. G. Little, 2nd edn, Manchester, 1951

Firmamenta: Firmamenta trium ordinum beatissimi Patris nostri Francisci, Paris, 1511–12: Hugh of Digne’s Expositio Regulae and Disputatio are in this edition in quarta pars, 1511

Jordan: Chronica fratris Jordani, ed. H. Boehmer, Paris, 1908

Julian, Julian of Speyer: Fr. Julianus de Spira, Vita S. Francisci, in AF X, 335–71

Liber Extra, X: ‘Decretalium Gregorii pp. Ⅸ compilatio’, in Corpus Iuris Canonici, ed. E. Friedberg, II, Leipzig, 1881

MGH: Monumenta Germaniae Historica

Misc. Fr.: Miscellanea Francescana

MOPH: Monumenta Ordinis Praedicatorum Historica

Narb.: Constitutions of Narbonne, in M. Bihl, ‘Statuta Generalia Ordinis, edita in capitulis generalibus celebratis Narbonae an. 1260, Assisii an. 1279, atque Parisiis an. 1292’, AFH 34 (1941), 13–94, 284–358

ODCC: The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd edn, ed. F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone, Oxford, 1997

OMT: Oxford Medieval Texts

Ov, Ordinem vestrum: the bull is cited from Eubel 1908, pp. 238–9

PL: Patrologiae Cursus Completus, Series Latina, ed. J. P. Migne, 221 vols., Paris, 1844–64

Potthast: Potthast, A., ed., Regesta pontificum Romanorum A.D. 1198–1304, 2 vols., Berlin, 1874–5

Qe, Quo elongati: see H. Grundmann, ‘Die Bulle “Quo elongati” Papst Gregors Ⅸ’, AFH 54 (1961), 3–25

RS: Rolls Series

Salimbene, H and S Salimbene de Adam, Cronica, ed. O. Holder-Egger, MGH Scriptores XXXII, 1905–13 (H); ed. G. Scalia, 2 vols., Scrittori d’Italia 232–3, Bari, 1966 (S)

Sbaralea: Sbaralea, J. H., ed., Bullarium Franciscanum, 4 vols., Rome, 1759–68: referred to by p. and no. – G9 = Gregory Ⅸ, I4 = Innocent Ⅳ, N3 = Nicholas Ⅲ, N4 = Nicholas Ⅳ, B8 = Boniface Ⅷ; and by no. in Eubel 1908

SL: Scripta Leonis, Rufini et Angeli sociorum S. Francisci: The Writings of Leo, Rufino and Angelo, Companions of St Francis, ed. and trans. R. B. Brooke, OMT, Oxford, 1970, corr. repr. 1990

3 Soc.: Legenda Trium Sociorum, ed. T. Desbonnets, AFH 67 (1974), 38–144

Sp S: Speculum Perfectionis, ed. P. Sabatier, 2nd edn, British Society of Franciscan Studies, 13, 17, Manchester, 1928–31

Treasury: see Assisi 1999

X: see Liber Extra