The Crib of Greccio and Franciscan Realism

Abstract

In 1926 a Franciscan scholar summed up in a fairly conclusive article what could be said on the subject, “St. Francis and the Visual Arts.”¹ It became obvious that the research done during the first quarter of the twentieth century had substantially changed our concept of the Poverello, as far as his personal relation to nature and art, as well as his influence on the arts are concerned. The picture we then got seemed to be like a painting cleaned of later restorations and varnishes. Yet, it cannot surprise us that today, after another twenty-five years, new corrections are necessary. The scholars² who have tackled the problem during the last few years have portrayed the figure of the Saint less as the exponent of a well-prepared and widespread evolution³ than as the great revolutionary pioneer in the fields of the sciences and the arts as well. The most surprising and certainly the most brilliant new statement maintains that St. Francis by acclaiming the sun, stars, wind, water and all the creatures as “brothers” and “sisters” instituted a “democracy of all God's creatures” and that this attitude provided “an adequate and hitherto lacking emotional basis for the objective investigation of nature” by the fourteenth century scientists.