The importance of being brutally yourself

Who was Saint Francis of Assisi? The gentle saint who spoke with animals or a grumpy man who preached absolute poverty, to the point of refusing any monetary donations and destroying the house built by the city of Assisi with his bare hands?

In a lecture taking place in the courtyard of Mantova's Palazzo Ducale, medievalist Alessandro Barbero guides us with historical rigour and a good pinch of irony through the various biographies that exist.

Barbero traces the main stages of the saint's life, beginning with his conversion: Francis was a young man from a wealthy family who, after being “touched by God”, experienced a long inner turmoil that led him to establish a brotherhood – “he did not like to call it a religious order,”

The great insight was “reaching the Church at the moment it needed it the most, as the institution was falling apart.” In 1210 AD, the Church had never been so powerful, and the faithful community was becoming more educated. Those who could read turned to the Gospel and discovered a great truth the clergy had neglected: poverty. This became the buzzword of Francis’ brotherhood, intended by the saint as a threefold principle, as a commitment to coherence, as a rejection of material possessions, including housing and even books, and as the possibility of begging when working was not possible.

“The Church risked losing contact with the masses,” explains Barbero, but at the same time Saint Francis risked losing touch with his close community due to the many restrictions imposed, which included studying and reading as little as possible, because knowing too much carries a risk of feeling superior, rather than empathising with others.

When Francis died, the brotherhood soon abandoned his strictest commandments, but his legacy remains immense because he left the Church as a compact, highly cultured, and well-structured organisation. And, as Barbero concludes, the greatest thing Francesco left us is the importance of being brutally yourself, and not aiming to be better than anyone else.