Università Roma Tre

This class, entitled “Francesco d’Assisi tra mito e storia” (“Francis of Assisi between myth and history”) want to use the character of saint Francis as an occasion to discover and learn the historic method and as a useful case of study to approach other historical subjects. In particular the class will establish a connection between two focuses of the research. The first-one will deal with the success of saint Francis in the present time in which he could be considered as a marker of the great political and social contradictions of our age: from the conflict between capital and work to the alternative between peace and war, from the environmental question to the more recent globalisation. Furthermore, we will analyse the exceptional success of saint Francis as icon who, being able to encroach upon the myth, shows a non-common creative force in the cultural context: from literature to visual arts, from painting to cinema, from music to philosophy until the reflexions of the psychiatric research.
The second focus will try to verify if the medieval character of Francis of Assisi, as we can know through the texts of the XIII century, is the same or not of the one belonged to the modern imagination. The class will analyse matches, frictions and historical projections of the past on the present through seminar lessons conceived as a real historical research to share with the students.

1) Francesco d'Assisi. Storia, arte mito, a cura di Marina Benedetti e Tommaso Supini, Carocci editore 2019

2) André Vauchez, Francesco d'Assisi, Einaudi 2010

3) Lecture notes composed by medieval texts on the life of Francis of Assisi – which will be the subject of historical exegesis during the class – and by some historical essays

4) G. Vitolo, Medioevo. I caratteri originali di un'età di transizione, Sansoni 2000: only for students who have never taken an exam of medieval history

5) The students must develop a subject of medieval history in an essay that must be arranged with the teacher during the class for the attendees, in the teacher’s office for non-attending students.