I Fioretti de San Francesco as communication tools of Christianity in the Italian Trecento: evidence from a cultural context

Abstract

This article aiming to present a critical reading of the I Fioretti de San Francesco work, from unknown author, here seen as communication tool of Christianity and more especifically of the Franciscan Movement for the evangelization cause and, above all, as a mean of cultural representation (especially of the religiosity) of the italian Trecento, initial period of Renaissance, time which this work was produced and published. For this, fundamentally, the reading of I Fioretti is made in the confrontation with some important arguments used by Jacob Burckbardt in his analysis about the italian Renaissance. The central conclusion of this study is that I Fioretti, when rescue the Christian experience of Francesco and some of his more faithful following, even if not in a priority way, wants to evidence moral and cultural values defended by Church during the Medium Age and started be confronted since the Renaissance advent and its anticlerical humanistic vision.