San Francis of Assisi in italian cultural memory (19th - 20th century)

Abstract

The border of the 19^th and 20^th centuries was very interesting. It was rich of different cultural events and philosophic questions and theories. Intellectuals as common people made plenty of essential questions trying to choose their way of life. The figure of San Francis of Assisi had become a sort of an answer for emotional searching as for artists, philosophers, the clergy, as for poor Italians, soldiers among the  Great War. The article tells about the ways of visual and verbal representation and appropriation of the medieval saint and his transformation in a symbol of national identity of Fascist Italy. The authors analyze the historical and cultural processes that have defined the representation of St. Francis as one of the main heroes of the Pantheon of Italian culture and the saint patron of the country. Using the methods of memory studies, discourse analyses here had been studied anniversaries, textbooks, monuments, silent films, press, and historiography. This way creating a wide and vivid historical and cultural context the figure of Poverello became more relief.