"The most saintly among Italians, the most Italian among the saints."

San Francesco d’Assisi abounds in both the Church and popular culture. The patron saint of Italy, lover of the created world, adherent of evangelical poverty. Pope Francis chose his papal name to honor him and entitled his 2015 encyclical Laudato si’ in a nod to the saint’s Laudes creaturarum; Claudio Baglioni, Angelo Branduardi and other artists have adapted his words for popular music. And yet, there are aspects of his life that are underestimated.

In his 2025 book Francesco, il primo italiano, Aldo Cazzullo highlights one of those under-appreciated elements: San Francesco’s italianità, or Italianness. Cazzullo argues that the saint known as alter Christus also represents a sort of proto-Italian. He is not the first to do so. Indeed, during the Risorgimento, as Italian patriots sought out figures appropriate for the expression of national sentiment, the neo-Guelph intellectual Vincenzo Gioberti wrote of San Francesco in his Del primato morale e civile degli italiani (1843) that he is “il più amabile, il più poetico e il più italiano de’ nostri santi!” Six decades later, Enrico Filiziani, in an article for the Catholic journal La Vera Roma, reproached those who might besmirch San Francesco: “Nessuno ardisca di toccare con indegno e vile pennello uno dei capolavori della grazia! San Francesco resti, quale ce lo presenta la realtà, il più santo fra gli Italiani, il più Italiano fra i santi” (January 18, 1903).

2026 marks the 800th anniversary of San Francesco’s Transitus, his earthly death, and the culmination of 18 months of official celebrations, which will also see the return of his feast day as an officially recognized federal holiday in Italy. Our symposium “San Francesco’s Transitus at 800 (1226-2026): ‘The most saintly among Italians, the most Italian among the saints’” joins numerous other manifestations in Italy and around the world in recognition of the saint and aims to explore San Francesco’s specific contributions to Italian culture, language, literature, history, politics, architecture, and theology.