Francis d'Assisi was at first called Francis Bernardone. His father
Pietro was a merchant of Assisi, much given to the pomps and vanities
of the world, a lover of France and of everything French. It was after
a visit to France in 1182 that, rejoining his beloved wife Pica in the
vale of Umbria, he found that God had given to him a little son. Pica
called the boy John, in honor of the playmate of the little Christ;
but Pietro commanded that he should be named Francis, because of the
bright land from whence he drew the rich silks and thick velvets he
liked to handle and to sell.
The vale of Umbria is the place for poets; it should be visited in the
summer, when the roses bloom on the trellises which the early Italian
painters put as backgrounds to their mothers and children. Florence is
not far away; and near is the birthplace of one of the fathers of the
sonnet, Fra Guittone, and of another poet, Propertius.
Francis's childhood, boyhood, and later youth were happy. His father
denied him no luxury in his power to give; he was sent to the priests
of the church of St. George. They taught him some Latin and much of
the Provencal tongue,--for at that time there was no Italian language;
there were only dialects, and the Provencal was used by the elegant,
those who loved poetry. Francis Bernardone was one of these; he sang
the popular Provencal songs of the day to the lute, for he had learned
music. And so passionately did he long for "excess of it," that, the
legend says, he stayed up all one night singing a duet with a
nightingale. The bird conquered; and later, Francis made a poem
glorifying the Creator who had given such a thrilling voice to it.
Up to the age of twenty-four Francis had been one of the lightest
hearted and the lightest headed of the rich young men of Assisi. His
father openly rejoiced in his extravagance, and admired the graceful
manner with which he wore gay clothes cut in latest fashions of
France. Madonna Pica, his mother, trembled for his future, while she
adored him and in spite of herself believed in him. Her neighbors
reproached her: "Your son throws money away; he is the son of a
prince!" And Pica, troubled, answered, "He whom you call the child of
a prince will one day be a child of God."
Pietro was delighted to see his son lead in all the sports of the
_corti_ of Assisi. The _corti_ were associations of young men addicted
to Provencal poetry and music and all sorts of gayety. Folgore da San
Gemiano gives, in a series of sonnets, well translated by Dante
Gabriel Rossetti, descriptions of their sports arranged according to
the months. March was the season for
"--lamprey, salmon, eel, and trout,
Dental and dolphin, sturgeon, all the rout
Of fish in all the streams that fill the seas."