CANTICLE OF THE SUN, The (II Cantico del Sole), known also as the Praises of the Creatures, is the only work in Italian that we possess of Saint Francis of Assisi. Giulio Bertoni calls it "the most brilliant gem of the Italian religious poetry of the 13th cen tury.° Renan goes even so far as to term it "the finest piece of religious poetry since the Written in the Umbrian dialect of the Saint's native region, its assonanced prose and occasional rhymes constitute in its primitive form one of the oldest monuments of medieval Italian. It was improvised at San Damiano in the fall of 1225 at a moment of great spiritual exaltation during a reaction from a period of severe illness and mental stress. Tradition claims the last two stanzas as subsequent addi tions, the final one having been composed by Saint Francis just prior to his death, 3 Oct. 1226. Consult (Mirror of Perfection) Chap. CI, CXIX, CXX, CXXIII.
In this canticle Saint Francis lays bare his own simple, naive soul, his wonderful love of inanimate nature, his artless faith and innate mystic love. He raises to the Creator a paten of praise for the light of the sun, the moon and stars, the air and clouds, rain and fire, for mother earth, for those who forgive and endure in peace, and finally for the bodily death "from which no living man can flees In the loftiness of its inspiration the (Canticle of the must be compared to Psalm 148 of David. Like the
famous of Saint Francis, a work of later date, the of the has touched the souls of men and has preserved in Italian hearts the popular tradition of their great Saint. It became in his last days the favorite song of Saint Francis, and must be regarded as the mes sage of the Saint himself in all his joyousnesi, his hopefulness, his broad sympathy toward all things, his feeling for universal brotherhood. We must not look for great literary merit in this canticle. Francis was not a man of learning, nor in those primitive times was the art of verse in the vernacular sufficiently developed to be compared with the perfected compositions of the following century. Yet in his religious poetry Saint Francis is of the lineage of Jaco pone da Todi, his Franciscan successor, who in turn is the precursor of Dante (consult (Par adiso,) canto XI). For a critical study of the writings of Saint Francis consult Robinson, Paschal, The Writings of Saint Francis of Assisi) (Philadelphia 1906). For the Italian original text consult Sabatier, Paul, (Speculum perfectionis) (Paris 1898). For an English translation Consult Cuthbert, of Saint Francis of (1914).