Les Fioretti de Saint François d’Assise [The Little Flowers of St. Francis of Assisi].

ASSISI, Saint Francis of.

Item Number: 110822

Paris: Club de Livre, 1966.

Finely bound example of this classic work with full-page color reproductions of illuminated manuscript pages; decorative initials. full antique-style tooled brown leather, metal clasps. With explanatory text and accompanying sample leaves, set loose in leather-backed folder. Both set in folding case. In near fine condition.

Little Flowers of Francis of Assisi is the name given to the classic collection of popular legends about the life of St. Francis of Assisi and his early companions. The collection, one of the most delightful literary works of the Middle Ages, was translated into Italian by an unknown fourteenth-century friar from a larger Latin work, the "Actus B. Francisci et Sociorum Ejus", attributed to Ugolino Brunforte. Or rather the fifty-three chapters which form the true text of the Fioretti were, for the four appendixes, on the Stigmata of St. Francis, the life of Fra Ginepro, and the life and the sayings of the Fra Egidio, are additions of later compilers.