St. Francis of Assisi, Size Small

What becomes a legend most?  In the case of St. Francis of Assisi, it’s eight-hundred-year-old documents pertaining to the establishment of the Franciscan order – not.

No, what becomes the saint of simple ways is the saint in miniature.

At least, that’s what I found at a recent exhibit of Francis memorabilia in Brooklyn. I set out the how and why of it in this essay up now on newyorker.com.

Flannery O’Connor, glossing the legend in which Francis converts the wolf of Gubbio, wrote this: “I don’t know whether he actually converted this wolf or whether the wolf’s character didn’t just greatly improve after he met St. Francis. Anyway, he calmed down a good deal. But the moral of the story, for me at least, is that the wolf, in spite of his reformed character, always remained a wolf.” So it is for the saint, too. Eight hundred years on, Francis is still Francis … His simplicity is intact; the threads of his brown cloak haven’t been ravelled.

The essay itself is meant to be a miniature – and simple, too. 

The image is of St. Francis incorporated into a medieval psalter in the recently concluded Brooklyn exhibit.   

• 23 January 2015
• #flannery o'connor#st. francis#the new yorker
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