Launching Pad for a Saint

San Gimignano is famous for lots of things – – it’s skyscraper towers, it’s beauty and its food, but perhaps it is not as famous for starting the career of St. Francis of Assisi.
The first thing our guide told us about Saint Francis is that his name was not Francis. He was born in the year 1182 as Giovanni di Bernardoni dei Moriconi. As a young man it was apparent that he was intelligent, very personable and quite handsome. He had all he needed to continue his father’s successful business. With his wealth, wit, talent and charm Giovanni was living the high life.
His dad sent him on a number of business trips across the Alps, and he soon became a confirmed Francophile, so much so that everyone began to call him “Frenchy”—Francesco or Francis. His father had the means to outfit his son as a knight in the war with Perugia. He was captured, imprisoned for a year, became seriously ill, and as a result felt that he needed to re-evaluate his life. After an encounter with a beggar, he adopted a life of poverty. His father objected and demanded that his son appear in the piazza before the town officials to renounce his new lifestyle. On the day appointed, Francis appeared in the public square, undressed completely, gave his clothing to his father saying, “You have always given me more than I needed, and I am grateful to you, Father. So now I return to you everything I own, and now I will serve my Heavenly Father.” One version of the story says that Francis’s close friend, a young noble woman named Chiara, immediately ran to an adjacent kiosk, grabbed a potato sack, ripped arm-holes in it and covered her friend’s nakedness. We know her today as St. Clare, and the Franciscans, as well as the nuns of the order of Santa Clara, today still wear a habit akin to sackcloth.
Francis began to attract others to his simplicity, and established a very simple set of rules based on the Bible. He set about to build churches in Tuscany, and one early base of his operations was established here in San Gimignano. Later he settled in Assisi. The remnants of the façade of one of his churches dedicated to St. John still stands here in San Gimignano. For many years he went up and down the countryside here building churches and preaching the need for a life of simplicity. God used him so powerfully that his message still resonates with people today.
Looking around in the beautiful town
With its green, cloud-draped hills stretching to the horizon, one could easily believe that this is a special place—a holy place. One could believe that God really does talk to people here.Read more