[31.] Hence the more or less subtile explanations with which they adorn these incidents.—As to the part of animals in thirteenth century legends consult Cæsar von Heisterbach, Strange's edition, t. ii., pp. 257 ff.
[32.] 1 Cel., 80-83.
[33.] 1 Cel., 83; Conform., 111a. M. Thode (Anfänge, pp. 76-94) makes a study of some thirty portraits. The most important are reproduced in Saint François (1 vol., 4to, Paris, 1885); 1, contemporary portrait, by Brother Eudes, now at Subiaco (loc. cit., p. 30); 2, portrait dating about 1230, by Giunta Pisano (?); preserved at Portiuncula (loc. cit., p. 384); 3, finally, portrait dated 1235, by Bon. Berlinghieri, and preserved at Pescia, in Tuscany (loc. cit., p. 277). In 1886 Prof. Carattoli studied with great care a portrait which dates from about those years and of which he gives a picture (also preserved of late years at Portiuncula). Miscellanea francescana t. i., pp. 44-48; cf. pp. 160, 190, and 1887, p. 32. M. Bonghi has written some interesting papers on the iconography of St. Francis (Francesco di Assisi, 1 vol., 12mo, Citta di Castello, Lapi, 1884. Vide pp. 103-113).
CHAPTER XI
THE INNER MAN AND WONDER-WORKING
The missionary journey, undertaken under the encouragement of St. Clara and so poetically inaugurated by the sermon to the birds of Bevagna, appears to have been a continual triumph for Francis.[1] Legend definitively takes possession of him; whether he will or no, miracles burst forth under his footsteps; quite unawares to himself the objects of which he has made use produce marvellous effects; folk come out from the villages in procession to meet him, and the biographer gives us to hear the echo of those religious festivals of Italy—merry, popular, noisy, bathed in sunshine—which so little resemble the fastidiously arranged festivals of northern peoples.
From Alviano Francis doubtless went to Narni, one of the most charming little towns in Umbria, busy with building a cathedral after the conquest of their communal liberties. He seems to have had a sort of predilection for this city as well as for its surrounding villages.[2] From thence he seems to have plunged into the valley of Rieti, where Greccio, Fonte-Colombo, San Fabiano, Sant-Eleuthero, Poggio-Buscone retain even stronger traces of him than the environs of Assisi.
Thomas of Celano gives us no particulars of the route followed, but, on the other hand, he goes at length into the success of the apostle in the March of Ancona, and especially at Ascoli. Did the people of these districts still remember the appeals which Francis and Egidio had made to them six years before (1209), or must we believe that they were peculiarly prepared to understand the new gospel? However this may be, nowhere else was a like enthusiasm shown; the effect of the sermons was so great that some thirty neophytes at once received the habit of the Order.