♦The Italian Editions.♦ The first Italian edition[3] appeared in 1847 under the title “Meditazione sulla Povertà di Santo Francesco.”[4] It is taken from a Fourteenth-Century Codex in the Franciscan Convent of Giaccherino, near Pistoia. Its editors were the Lexicographer, Pietro Fanfani, and a Canon of Pistoia, Enrico Bindi. It has been quoted in the great “Vocabolario” of the Academicians of the Crusca, and has therefore become a “Testo di Lingua” or Italian classic.[5] The “Meditazione” is a very free translation indeed from the original Latin. The translator adds beauties and leaves out obscurities at will. It is curious to us in these days, when Franciscan studies are being pursued with such avidity all the world over (if I except England), to reflect that the editors, Fanfani and Bindi, did not know whether the “Meditazione” was a translation or an original work. The Fourteenth-Century translator is unknown.

The next Italian edition (1900) is the one given in parallel columns with the Latin version of Père Edouard d’Alençon’s work above quoted. It is taken from Codex B. 131 in the Vallicellian Library, and is probably a Fourteenth-Century work, but, if interesting, it has little or no merit as an example of fine Tuscan.

The third Italian edition is a much-needed and very welcome work.[6] It is a reprint of the “Meditazione,” which has for long been so scarce as to be almost unprocurable. The editor, Don Salvatore Minocchi, a Florentine priest, and one of the foremost authorities on matters Franciscan, than whom there could be no one more fitted for the task, has carefully collated the original edition of the “Meditazione” with the Codex from which it was taken, and has removed quite a host of erroneous readings. We may therefore now be said to have, for the first time, a correct version of this little Italian classic. It was only printed in the last days of May, and I have to thank the learned editor for courteously permitting me to see his proof sheets.

AUTHORSHIP AND DATE

The authorship of the “Sacrum Commercium” has been freely ascribed to the Blessed Giovanni da Parma, seventh Minister General of the Friars Minor in succession to Saint Francis. I would with all my heart that he were the author, for Giovanni is one of the brightest lights of the Order, and both by his love and practice of Poverty, and by his great endowments, is the ideal author for so exquisite an allegory. The “Chronica xxiv. Generalium,” which was completed in 1379, and begun perhaps twenty years earlier, distinctly states that Giovanni is the author (“quendam libellum devotum composuit quem intitulavit Commercium Paupertatis”),[7] and this opinion was followed by all succeeding old writers (except Fra Bartolommeo da Pisa, who makes no attempt to assign authorship), and most moderns, including Professor Alvisi, M. Sabatier,[8] Professor Umberto Cosmo,[9] and the latest biographer of the Blessed, Fra Luigi da Parma.[10] But all the Codexes which Père Edouard d’Alençon cites, as also a Codex in the Bodleian and another in the Communal library at Siena, give the date of composition as the month of July after the death of Saint Francis, that is to say July, 1227. (Actum est hoc opus mense Julii post obitum Beatissimi Francisci, anno Millesimo ducentesimo vigesimo septimo ab Incarnatione Domini Salvatoris Nostri Jesu Christi.) If this date be correct, then the Blessed Giovanni could not have been its author, for he was only born in 1208, and did not enter the Order until after 1230. There is the point that Mediæval scribes were given (like other mortals) to making errors in dates, more especially when they were in Roman figures, and these errors would have been propagated from Codex to Codex. We have the well-known instance of the Mazarin Codex No. 1743, where the erroneous date of 1228 led a distinguished French critic to look upon the “Speculum Perfectionis” as the oldest biography of St Francis. The date was probably 1318, and it will be seen how easily a slip might be made between MCCXXVIII and MCCCXVIII.[11] But in favour of the date of 1227 for the “Sacrum Commercium” we have not only the fact that the date is written in words and not in figures, but that the “explicit” distinctly states that it was finished in the July after the death of St Francis. Such extreme precision does not leave much room for error. Moreover, there is practically no serious internal evidence against the date 1227. It is true that the Casanatese Codex, at the beginning of Chap. iv. speaks of “Sanctum Franciscum,” whereas St Francis was not canonized until 1228. But this, even if some refuse to translate it simply “the holy Francis,” and insist upon “St Francis,” I think it is fair to regard as the slip of a scribe, more especially as the Vincenzian Codex gives “beatum” in the same place, and both Italian versions have “beato.” There is, therefore, no substantial reason why we may not regard the “Sacrum Commercium” as written in 1227, and it is interesting to note that this little allegory is thus the first book ever written on St Francis, for Thomas of Celano’s “Legenda Prima,” was not completed until the following year.[12]

There are, to my mind, two conclusive arguments, both adduced by Père Edouard,[13] against attributing the authorship to Giovanni da Parma. Fra Ubertino da Casale in a famous work[14] (“too famous,” it might justly be called), finished in 1305, is the first writer who expressly mentions the “Sacrum Commercium,” and he ascribes it merely to “a certain holy doctor,” giving no name. Now Ubertino well knew Giovanni (ob. 1289), and it seems impossible that he should not also have known and celebrated the Blessed as the author of the “Sacrum Commercium” had he really been so. Again Fra Salimbene da Parma (ob. 1287 or 1290) knew the Blessed Giovanni intimately, and alludes to him frequently in his Chronicle.[15] He even refers to writings of Giovanni’s, but there is never a hint of the “Sacrum Commercium.” The only theory on which it is possible to ascribe the authorship to Fra Giovanni is so wild as scarcely to be worthy of mention. We should have to suppose, seeing the unpopularity of the extremes of Poverty in a certain section of the Order, that he was afraid to acknowledge his work, and that he deliberately, and with much circumstance, falsified the date to secure his anonymity. But the Blessed Giovanni was not made of such poor stuff! He who endured hatred, persecution and imprisonment, to some extent by reason of his zeal for the Lady Poverty, was not the man to resort to so trivial a ruse. His deeds were far more unpopular (with some) than ever this little allegory could have made him.

Père Edouard d’Alençon, with much ingenuity, seeks to credit Giovanni Parenti, St Francis’ immediate successor as Minister General (1227-1233), with the authorship. He gives an instance tending to show that there was a tradition that a Minister General had written the work, and then he points to the similarity between “Joannes Parenti” and “Joannes Parmensis.” All this proves his acumen and ingenuity, but he is too severely scientific a scholar to advance a clever theory as proof positive. For the present it is safest to admit frankly that the author of the “Sacrum Commercium” is unknown, and to conclude with Fra Ubertino da Casale that he was “quidam sanctus doctor hujus Sanctæ Paupertatis professor et zelator strenuus.”

TRANSLATION AND SCRIPTURE REFERENCES

I have translated from Père Edouard d’Alençon’s version of the Codex Casanatensis.[16] But I have not slavishly adhered to this, using, when they seemed more apt, the variants which he has so diligently noted at foot. I have also, now and again, used the Italian version of the Codex Vallicellianus, and, though very rarely, even the classic “Meditazione.” In my translation I have been no bondsman, but have rendered freely, while seeking to convey accurately the spirit and meaning of the work, and to preserve, as far as that might be, the elemental simplicity of its language.