Treasured Texts, Inspired Images Franciscan Inquiries in the Sciences since 1225

The volume accompanies the exhibition at the Museum of Rome from 2 October 2024 to 6 January 2025 on the occasion of the eighth centenary of the Canticle of Brother Sun, and shows how Francis’ initial spiritual and poetic insight inspired the development of Franciscan reflection on nature—in the philosophical and theological, as well as strictly scientific sense.

A wide-ranging selection of manuscripts and antique printed books from the Library of the Sacred Convent of St. Francis outlines a path that reveals the traces left by the friar readers through the centuries, enabling us to reconstruct their interests, to discover the fields of knowledge that aroused their curiosity, and to follow their studies.

English edition. Translations by Susan Ann White, Gavin Williams, Mark Eaton, Oona Smyth, Adam Victor, and Sergio Knipe on behalf of Scriptum, Rome.