Little Flowers of St. Francis
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Little Flowers of St. Francis (Italian Fioretti di San Francesco) is a florilegium, divided into 53 short chapters, on the life of Saint Francis of Assisi which was composed at the end of the 14th century. The anonymous text in Italian, almost certainly by a Tuscan author, is a version of the Latin Actus beati Francisci et sociorum eius. Written some time after his death, the text is not regarded as an important primary source for the saint’s biography. However, it has been the most popular account of the Saint Francis’s life and relates many colourful anecdotes about Francis and his followers (such as Saint Juniper) which shed much light upon the genesis and development of his cult.
The text was the inspiration for the Roberto Rossellini’s 1950 film Francesco, giullare di Dio (“Francis, God’s Jester”) which was co-written by Federico Fellini.
[edit] External links
- The text, in Italian, is available in plain text and/or rtf format from the Liber Liber: biblioteca e audioteca digitali ad accesso gratuito site, which also provides a brief description of the text.
- The text in English at Christian Classics Ethereal Library
- Fioretti di San Francesco d'Assisi - article in the Catholic Encyclopedia.
