The Secrets of Italy

by Corrado Augias

  An anonymous text about Francis titled “The Sacred Covenant with Lady Poverty” clarifies the relationship the early brethren had with the act of self-denial, which resulted in an unprecedented serenity. The allegory speaks of how Francis and some of his companions spent a day in the company of a lovely lady referred to as Madonna Povertà, or “Lady Poverty.” They lead her up to a place of great natural beauty, offer her some stale bread, give her some spring water to quench her thirst, and offer her a place to rest on the bare ground. Upon awakening she asks them to show her the cloister where they spend a portion of their day, whereupon they lead her to a hilltop and point to the surrounding territories, as far as the eye could see, telling her that is their cloister.

  It is a touching anecdote, but above all it helps us understand the distinction between the mendicant friars of Francis and all other monks. The latter shut themselves away in convents and cloisters, isolating themselves in places from which even the faithful were usually excluded. For the Franciscans, on the other hand, the world itself was their cloister. Each of them had, in a sense, fled from the world, but that flight was about the follower and him alone—his actions and the example he set were projected out into the world, viewed as a free space, wide open to his perpetual wandering.

  This undeniably revolutionary impulse could not but be viewed unfavorably by a Church that practiced the exact opposite behavior: its use of wealth was often conspicuous, and it behaved according to the rules imposed by the dynamics of established power. Another fourteen years had to pass until, in 1223, Innocent’s successor Honorius III agreed to officially grant the Rule of Francis a papal bull; even then, it had been modified to such an extent that it now reflected only a small portion of his initial intentions. Chiara Frugoni summarizes the differences between these documents: “Most of the evangelical quotes were omitted, and the language became dry and legal instead of effusive and poetic. The document no longer speaks of the duty to cure lepers, take a strict vow of poverty, or rebel against unworthy superiors,” and so on and so forth. Francis won official recognition, but clearly felt the weight of the compromises it required. According to some biographers, 1223 marked the beginning of the period of his so-called great temptation: He abandoned everything, stopped caring for his community of brothers, and retreated into a solitary conversation with God.

  With or without the papal bull the order still spread and the Franciscans, as they are now known worldwide, exuded great charm wherever they went to preach, attracting new members—perhaps too many, judging by the fact that the movement soon sprouted different philosophies or “strains,” as we might say today. Toward the end of his life Francis was forced to repeatedly denounce the involution of the order he had created, knowing that it had come to contain too many divergent positions. In terms of sheer number, the so-called spiritual strain took on particular importance. Its adherents claimed to want to live in absolute poverty, in imitation of Jesus Christ and in obedience to the testament of Francis himself. This sect grew particularly strong in southern France/Provence and central Italy, especially Tuscany; its friars were known not only for their impassioned preaching and devotion to poverty, but also for their pronouncements regarding the imminent arrival of the apocalypse, which would put an end to the corruption of the Church and herald its renewal.

  The barely hidden contrast between the Church hierarchy’s official line and these “alternative” precepts exploded ninety years after Francis’s death, with the ascent of Pope John XXII. Born Jacques Duèze in 1249 in Cahors, an ancient Gallo-Roman town in the Midi-Pyrénées, the new pontiff was consecrated in September 1316 at the rather advanced age of sixty-seven. In this period (1309–77), the papal seat was located in Avignon. Disputes within the Franciscan order, especially those raised by the spiritual branch, were one of the problems the new pope had to deal with. And deal with them he does, in his own way—that is, decisively, avoiding further fracturing by other pauperistic movements through harsh repression. One year after his election, Pope John banned the spiritual Franciscans: all dissidents were sent before the Inquisition to be condemned as heretics.

  The disagreement centered mainly on the issue of poverty, which became such a controversial topic that the spiritual Franciscans and the pope ended up accusing each other of heresy. In 1389 (more than 150 years after Francis’s death!) the Franciscan preacher Michele da Calci, a member of the “little brothers of the poor life” (Fratres de paupere vita) from the province of Pisa, was burned at the stake in Florence. The story of his trial and martyrdom, told by an anonymous monk as “The Story of Minor Brother Michael,” is considered one of the great texts of fourteenth-century Italian literature.10 Like any eyewitness report, it even records the screams of the crowd urging the monk, as he is led to the gallows, to recant his ideas: “Deny it, deny it!” they shouted, and even “You should not die willingly, you fool.” He did not recant and, like the philosophizing Dominican friar Giordano Bruno, he died at the stake.

  Umberto Eco’s novel The Name of the Rose makes one character, Adso of Melk, another witness of this event, paraphrasing the text of the anonymous monk:

  They set fire to the wood. And Brother Michael, who had chanted the “Credo,” afterward chanted the “Te Deum.” He sang perhaps eight verses of it, then he bent over as if he had to sneeze, and fell to the ground, because his bonds had burned away. He was already dead: before the body is completely burned it has already died from the great heat, which makes the heart explode, and from the smoke that fills the chest. Then the hut burned entirely, like a torch.… 11

  During his life Francis had long understood that the movement he founded had become too large to maintain the compact inspiration it had at the outset, a fact that became broadly evident a few decades after his death. In 1266, exactly forty years after his passing, the leaders of the Franciscan order gathered in Paris to select, for reasons of discipline and doctrine, the sole authorized biography they would allow to remain in circulation, dismissing the many others. They chose the one written by Bonaventure of Bagnoregio (born Giovanni Fidanza, 1221–74), a theologian, philosopher, professor at the Sorbonne, and minister general of the order. Also known as Doctor Seraphicus because of his theological wisdom, he was the best man for the job, and could write what had to be written. His text became known as the Legenda maior, with the first word taken literally: a must-read book.

  In addition to these skills, however, Bonaventure also had a precise vision of who Francis had been, and wanted to set straight the considerable confusion caused by the many rumors about the saint’s life, including Thomas of Celano’s two different “biographies.” Therefore the committee convened in Paris ordered the destruction of all the other “Legends” in circulation, and many texts that diverged from the official line were seized and burned. With a swift process of elision and editing, the life of poor, glorious Francis was purified of its most dramatic aspects and at the same time elevated to a level not far from that of Christ.

  Francis was certainly a “good” man in the broadest sense of the term, and that quality must have struck all who encountered him. His presence must have been fraternal and reassuring, his expression intense and kind, since many people had already begun to call him Alter Christus, “another Christ.”

  But his goodness went hand in hand with his unwavering vision of the true path to holiness, and an indifference to the tortures and sacrifices it might entail. His vision gave precedence to the very last moments of Jesus’s life, his Passion: the whip, the thorns, the nails, the blood. And the last few years of Francis’s own life were a conscious, willful replica of the Passion: his liver, spleen, and stomach failed him, his sores spread, he was frightfully thin, he caught an intestinal infection after drinking contaminated water in Egypt, and was nearly blinded by a trachoma contracted in the Near East. Suffering was his constant companion, day and night.

  Then there is the controversial legend of the stigmata, which I will not dwell on, given the many different versions of the
story and their complex theological implications.12

  Bonaventure’s Legenda maior sealed the fate of Francis’s legacy by elevating him to an unreachable height, such that no one could feel guilt at being unable to match his sacrifices. According to the novelist and historian Alessandro Barbero, “It was a matter of showing that the order’s strength, its hundreds of monasteries, its thousands of monks, its leaders’ ideological and political influence, and its perfect integration in the Church’s balance of power did not contradict the ideal of poverty by which the inimitable Saint Francis had chosen to live.”13 To have his movement welcomed into the Church, he had had to make serious compromises, and his legacy in turn had to be stripped of any potentially excessive or dramatic aspects. Chiara Frugoni believes that Bonaventure was the one who imposed this new Francis, well aware that he ran the risk of reducing him to the sweet, slightly cloying character we have become accustomed to.

  During the last few agonizing years of his short life, Francis was aware that the movement was shifting away from the ardent faith with which he had built it, veering away from the search for simplicity and peace that was the foundation of his “gospel.” His pain would have been even more bitter had he been able to foresee that his own brothers—the Franciscans, alongside the Dominicans—would become the harshest judges in the courts of the Inquisition.

  In September 1220, during a general chapter at the church of Saint Mary of the Portiuncula attended by Cardinal Ugolino, he said he was too ill to fulfill his role as guide, and entrusted the job to his friend Pietro Cattani. In a Latin manuscript of unknown origin known as the Compilatio assisiensis or “Assisi Compilation” (and also referred to as the “Leggenda antica di san Francis,” the “Ancient Legend of St. Francis”), we read that his decision was based not so much on his illness, but more out of disappointment. He felt that, once upon a time, the brothers observed holy poverty with great commitment, but then its purity and perfection became corrupted, and the brothers used the excuse that they could not stick to the ideal because there were just too many of them. Francis knew he had lost authority as founder, and his health was also getting worse by the day. His final hours are particularly moving. At forty-four he was a relatively young man, even by the standards of the time, but his pains gave him no respite and his physical exhaustion was compounded by spiritual suffering, which is perhaps even crueler than bodily suffering. He had also botched an attempt to cure his trachoma by himself, using a red-hot iron, which only resulted in severe facial burns; naturally, his eyesight got no better.

  During the night between October 3 and 4, 1226, laid out on the bare ground, Francis left his earthly life and entered the realm of legend.

  The somewhat saccharine image of Francis that is so prevalent today does not do justice to the dramatic power of his message. But you can still catch an echo of it in Assisi’s Franciscan community, which welcomes and unites all different kinds of people.

  In June 1939 (the tenth anniversary of the Lateran Accords), Pope Pius XII proclaimed Francis patron saint of Italy. His announcement featured an infamous play on words that—intentionally or not we do not know—toed the line of the Fascist regime in power at the time, declaring Francis the most Italian of all the saints and the saintliest of all Italians. Even Benito Mussolini tried to appropriate the image of the pauper saint, who had become very popular in a country filled with paupers. In a magazine article titled “Messaggio francescano” (“Franciscan Message”), he praised Francis with belabored phrasing: “The prow of the ship that carries the immortal doctrine of this standard-bearer Eastward greets the infallible destiny of the race, retracing the steps of its forebears. And the saint’s disciples who, following him, moved to the Levant, were both missionaries of Christ and missionaries of the Italian character.”14

  Issues of race aside, both Catholics and non-Catholics would probably agree on another aspect of Francis’s legacy, the poetic spirit emanating from the Laudes creaturarum, better known as “The Canticle of the Creatures” or “Canticle of the Sun.” It is a key text of early Italian literature, and was innovative in comparison to prevailing views on the penitential life back then; it was also quite prophetic, foreseeing the precepts behind the science we now know as ecology. In it, Francis joyfully sings the praises of the world, of animals, and of natural elements such as water, wind, sun, and even death itself, considering it a divine gift. Here, his religiosity morphs into a harmonious ode to nature in its entirety.

  Praised be You, my Lord, with all Your creatures,

  especially Sir Brother Sun,

  Who is the day and through whom You give us light …

  Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars,

  in heaven You formed them clear and precious and beautiful.

  Praised be You, my Lord, through Brother Wind,

  and through the air, cloudy and serene, and every kind of weather …

  Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Water,

  who is very useful and humble and precious and chaste.

  Praised be You, my Lord, through Brother Fire,

  through whom You light the night …

  Praised be You, my Lord, through our Sister Mother Earth,

  who sustains and governs us,

  and who produces varied fruit with colored flowers and herbs.

  Praised be You, my Lord, for those who give pardon for Your love,

  and bear infirmity and tribulation …

  Praised be You, my Lord, through our Sister Bodily Death,

  from whom no one living can escape.15

  Anyone familiar with the life of Francis will have noticed that these brief notes omit numerous episodes. I make no mention of Saint Clare, his “sister” in poverty, nor do I delve into the most famous legends, from his preaching to the birds to his taming of the wolf, nor have I mentioned the advent of the nativity scene tradition and its inclusion of two animals, the ox and mule, which there is no trace of in the scriptures. And I have only barely touched upon the difficulties he had in getting his Rule and new order accepted by a papacy that had long been suspicious of such a radical call to the gospel.

  A recent book by the philosopher Massimo Cacciari explores Francis’s journey, arriving at divinity only after starting out from the most forlorn human condition.16 In this chapter, I have taken a rather different approach, casting Francis in an entirely earthly dimension so as to fully grasp his heroic intensity. Cacciari’s essay examines Giotto’s and Dante’s interpretations of Francis. In the frescoes of Assisi’s main basilica (as well as in the Bardi Chapel in the church of Santa Croce, Florence), Giotto portrays Francis according to Bonaventure’s Legenda maior. His life appears somewhat softened in the paintings: scenes of his dramatic encounter with the lepers and his death, which he insisted take place outside, on the bare ground, are both omitted. In short, Giotto seems to stick to the “correct” interpretation of his life as requested by the Church. Dante’s portrayal, on the other hand, is a profound homage, and the poems tell of a man who submits his Rule to the pope without bowing—making him a Ghibelline, so to speak, or better yet, a true Alter Christus. Dante writes (Paradise, canto 11, verse 50) that “a sun was born to the world” in Assisi and that Lady Poverty, after losing her first husband with the death of Jesus, had to wait eleven centuries before finding, in Francis, her second.17

  In this chapter our story has focused on our hero’s exceptional “civility,” since Francis belongs in the same circle as many other great spirits—such as Michelangelo, Giordano Bruno, Galileo, and Dante—all of whom fought, with all their strength, to assert their individual worldviews. Some sacrificed their lives for their ideals, and all pushed them to the very limits.

  People of this temperament are a minority everywhere, not to mention in Italy. Italians have a widespread reputation for being accommodating even when they should not be, more inclined to compromise than to courageously break from the ranks, more apt to forget their word than to keep it. They inhabit a land, after
all, that has never successfully staged a revolution, as we have already seen. Riots, rebellions, and uprisings yes, but never real revolutions. This is the country’s “character,” and its history has followed suit. But it has also had its share of greats, all those who, like Francis, tenaciously carried out their given task, without trembling: magistrates who died defending justice, courageous priests who sacrificed themselves to fight crime, lawyers who resisted the criminal underworld’s incessant blackmail, politicians who rejected the shame of the abuses of power, volunteers and freedom fighters who braved torture to reaffirm the nation’s dignity. They are the select few, the noble minority, the brothers and sisters of Francis.

  8.

  THE GOOD DUCHESS

  It is hard to believe that a city with fewer than 200,000 inhabitants and a territory of one hundred square miles boasts so many quality goods and talents. Parma, better than any other Italian city, exemplifies how the different events and historical phases a place experiences can potentially become an intolerable burden or a unique opportunity.

  In Parma, the latter has prevailed. The past, its legacies, and their implications for the present are perhaps more visible here than elsewhere. Here it could be said, without too much exaggeration, that you breathe the city’s rich past in through the beauty of its streets and squares, its theatrical traditions, and its unparalleled cuisine—symbolized by its delicate prosciutto and exceptional Parmigiano Reggiano, king of cheeses. One of the most beloved local dishes, turkey breast with a prosciutto and parmesan filling, is called Duchessa di Parma, “Duchess of Parma.” Then there is Stendhal’s succulent favorite, anolini, a type of hand-made pasta stuffed with breadcrumbs, eggs, and parmesan cheese—a must for lovers of fine food. As for the local talents outside of the kitchen, just consider painters like Correggio and Parmigianino, musical masters like Verdi and Toscanini, and, more recently, visionaries like the poet Attilio Bertolucci and his film-director son, Bernardo.