Author

Francis of Assisi

1182–1226 · Assisi · Italy

The son of a wealthy silk merchant in Assisi, he gave up his inheritance after a conversion that followed soldiering and illness, and took up a life of poverty and open-air preaching. Pope Innocent III approved his order of friars in 1210. He staged the first recorded Christmas nativity scene around 1220 and is now honored as patron of animals and the environment.

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Lived

1182–1226

Hymnal

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