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 (page 37), son of Pietro di Bernadone, merchant; born at Assisi. Trained as a merchant, but preferred a life of pleasure, and was the acknowledged chief of a band of happy hedonists in his native town. Taken prisoner by the Perugians in 1202, he began to dream of military glory during captivity, and when he was free decided to take arms on behalf of Innocent III, but, falling ill at Spoleto, he was warned in a vision to become the ‘new soldier of Christ’, and returned to Assisi. He separated himself from his family, and in 1209, having given away all that he possessed, he went from city to city preaching the new gospel of poverty, repentance, and love for others. In 1210 the Rule of the new Order was approved by Innocent III, and in 1217 five thousand Brothers assembled at the first General Chapter. Probably he met St. Dominic at Porziuncola in 1218. In 1219 he went to St. John of Acre, but was recalled to Italy owing to dissensions in the Order. In 1223 the revised rule was solemnly ratified by Honorius III. A year later, on the Mount Alvernia, the body of the saint, worn by long toils and fasting, prese l'ultimo sigillo, and on the 4th of October, 1226, he died at Porziuncola whilst the larks, as the old legend tells us, sang at his window. He was canonized by Gregory IX in 1228, and two years later his remains were interred beneath the high altar of the Lower Church.

1. 4. ene = è. 5. cum = per mezzo di. 11. clarite = chiare.

(page 38). A poet of the Sicilian court. This Tenzone is not written in Sicilian dialect, but in the still unformed language which all the earliest Italian poets used with local variations. 534