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[Chapter I]
[THE CHOICE OF FRIENDS]a
In the first place, then, the most perfect man Francis appeared conformed to our Lord Jesus Christ in the choice of his friends.
3 Christ had some prophets who predicted many things about his coming, holiness, preaching, death, and glory; had a precursor who would incline people's hearts to devotion and reverence for him, so that they would believe in him. And He had twelve Apostles, one of whom went and hanged himself with a halter. He had, among others, four evangelists, and had four principal doctors expounding his teaching against heretics and exercising ecclesiastical office; and He had martyrs, confessors and virgins. Francis likewise is seen to have had such people as is clearly evident in what is written below.
3bTherefore, Francis son of Pietro Bernardone, son of Bernardone of Assisi, had a brother called Angelo and a mother named Pica. His brother, Angelo, fathered Giovanni and Picardo; Giovanni fathered Siccolo, who fathered Giovanni, Angelo, Petruccio, Bernardo, and Francesco, and their sisters Francesca and Chiara.b Angelo and Francesco,c great grand-nephews of Francis, were Lesser Brothers and lived during the time of the Lord Pope John XXII. Brother Francesco, moreover, lived until the plague.d Petruccio fathered a daughter called Francesca who, in the year of the Lord 1365, was still a young girl. Bernardo also had another daughter, Giovanna, who is also still alive.
3cBefore the approval of The Rule, Saint Francis, a most eminently pure virgin, fathered in Christ eleven sons who were the first Lesser Brothers with whom he presented himself before the Lord Pope Innocent III for the confirmation of the Gospel Rule. These were:
- The numbering of these paragraphs is based on the text published by Marian Michalczyk, cf. Supra 678 a.
- In the archives of the Sacro Convento, Arnaldo Fortini found a document, Str. X 29, stating that Chiara was a Poor Clare of the Monastery of Sant' Angelo in Panzo and listed among its abbesses. Cf. Arnaldo Fortini, Nova Vita di San Francesco (Assisi: Edizioni Assisi, 1959), 100.
- Fortini also found in the same archives, Str. IX 29, a reference to Francesco as living at the Sacro Convento and, later, as guardian of San Damiano, cf. Fortini, Nova Vita, 100.
- The Latin ad mortalitatem [until the plague] is an expression found in fourteenth century literature referring to the plague of 1349.