Franciscan Miscellany, including I Fioretti di San Francesco (Little Flowers of Saint Francis), Leggenda di S. Chiara vergine (Legend of Saint Catherine the Virgin), Second Rule of Saint Francis, and Testament of Saint Francis

Franciscan Miscellany, including I Fioretti di San Francesco (Little Flowers of Saint Francis), Leggenda di S. Chiara vergine (Legend of Saint Catherine the Virgin), Second Rule of Saint Francis, and Testament of Saint Francis

This Franciscan compendium depicting Saint Francis in an illuminated letter P, painted in a Northern Italian style, features a varied collection of stories and apocryphal legends regarding Saint Francis, his companions, and his disciples. Known as I Fioretti di San Francesco (the Little Flowers of Saint Francis), this was one of the best loved of all Franciscan anthologies. The Fioretti comprises a florilegium of chapters recounting Franciscan stories and legends, some directly concerned with the Order’s founding figure and others related to his successive followers. The first edition of the text was printed in Vicenza in 1476. Originally based upon oral accounts transformed into Latin, these had been retranslated into the Tuscan dialect by the mid-fourteenth century. The volume also contains an Italian prose translation of the Life of Saint Clare, which has likewise not yet been the subject of a critical edition.

Illuminator: follower of Guglielmo Giraldi and Franco dei Russi

ca. 1460–80

Manuscript on paper, 167 fols.

University of Pennsylvania, Ms. Codex 1577

Venice or Ferrara, Italy