BOOK I

His birth--Prediction of his future greatness--His studies--He applies himself to commerce--His purity, and affection for the poor--He is taken prisoner--He falls sick--His charity increases towards the poor--He has a mysterious dream--He wishes to go to the war--Jesus Christ dissuades him--He is rapt in spirit--His conversion--He kisses a leper--Jesus Christ crucified appears to him--Salutary effects of this apparition--He goes to Rome--Mingles with the poor--Is tempted by the devil--A voice from heaven commands him to restore the Church of S. Peter Damian--His devotion to the passion of Jesus Christ--He takes some pieces of cloth from his father's house, and sells them, to restore the Church of S. Damian--He escapes from the anger of his father, and retires to a cave--He appears in Assisi, where he is ill-treated--His father confines him--His mother delivers him, and he returns to S. Damian--He manifests his intention to his father, who appeals to justice, and cites him before the Bishop of Assisi--He renounces his inheritance, and gives back his clothes to his father--The poverty of his clothing--He is beaten by robbers--Retires to a monastery--They give him a hermit's habit--He devotes himself to the leprous--Receives the gift of healing, and returns to Assisi, where he searches for stone to restore the Church of Assisi--He toils at building as a laborer--He lives on alms--His father and brother exercise his patience--The victories he gains over himself--People begin to esteem and honor him--He predicts something which is fulfilled--He restores the Church of S. Peter and that of S. Mary of the Angels, or the Portiuncula--Dwells at S. Mary of the Angels, and is favored there with heavenly apparitions--He is called to the apostolical life--Renounces money and goes discalced--His poor and humble habit--God inspires him to preach--He weeps bitterly over the sufferings of Jesus Christ--Receives three disciples, and retires with them to a deserted cottage--He goes on a mission, and his disciples accompany him--the way they are treated--He receives three other disciples--He makes them beg for alms--What he said to the Bishop of Assisi, on renouncing all his possessions--He predicts to the Emperor Otho the short duration of his glory--It is revealed to him that his sins are remitted--He is rapt in ecstasy, and predicts the extension of his Order--He makes several other predictions, and receives a seventh disciple--He proposes a new mission to them--The address he makes them on their preparation for, and conduct during, the mission--He returns near to Assisi, where he receives four more disciples--He assembles all his disciples--Composes a Rule, and goes to obtain the Pope's approval--He makes a marvellous conversion--He knows miraculously what will happen to him at Rome--He is at first repulsed by Pope Innocent III., but is afterwards received favorably--Difficulties on the approbation of his Rule--He overcomes them by an address he makes the Pope--The Pope approves his Rule, and accumulates favors on it--He leaves Rome with his friars for the valley of Spoleto--God provides for his necessities--He stops at a deserted church--Consults God on his mission, and returns to the cottage of Rivo-torto--His sufferings there--The instructions he gives--God shows him to his brethren under a most marvellous aspect--The church of S. Mary of the Angels is given to him--He establishes himself there with his Friars