From the jester who sang Christ in the squares to Occam’s scientific method, from Juvenal’s satire to Eco’s novel: because the national feast of Saint Francis speaks to us today about ancient roots, politics and the European future.

A return that questions, but should not divide

4 October becomes a national holiday again. There is no shortage of controversy: there are those who cry ‘return of clericalism’, those who note the irresponsibility of yet another working day subtracted from the calendar (to the detriment of productivity) and those who instead read in this gesture a strong political sign. Perhaps it would have been appropriate for the feast day of the patron saint of Italy to replace another ‘red’ date on the calendar and not be added to it. That said, whether one likes it or not, the Italian State’s choice to celebrate Saint Francis of Assisi (1181/1182-1226) as Patron Saint of Italy is not just a religious act. It is a reference to a cultural heritage that has marked European history. A heritage that today, in a Europe ravaged by wars and populism, could become a compass and a provocation.

The jester who did not entertain the powerful

Francis called himself a ‘jester of God’. And true to the spirit of Juvenal’s ancient satire on panem et circenses, his was a free jester, not at the service of the powerful but of truth. In the Fioretti we find one of the most astonishing scenes in our spiritual literature:
“And going through the world, many times, as a jester of God, he took a stick from the ground and made the act of playing the violin; and he sang the praises of Christ in French, and very gaily he moved his feet, almost dancing, and did so in all the squares and crossroads of the cities and castles; and for this reason many who did not want to hear the preaching of the friars, hearing such juggling of Saint Francis, ran after him and were then converted”.
In this gesture is embodied the idea of a liberating laughter, never complacent, never reduced to a show for power. Because it is not true, referring not by chance to the late lamented Jannacci, that ‘we must always be merry, because our crying hurts the king’.

The Stigmata and the dignity of pain

In 1224 Francis received the Stigmata at La Verna: a supreme sign of participation in the mystery of the Passion. For centuries, Christians had been almost ashamed of the suffering Christ, preferring to depict him as Christus Triumphans, already clothed and resurrected even on the cross. The turning point came in the late Middle Ages with Franciscan culture: Giunta Pisano, Cimabue and especially Giotto (1267-1337) dared to paint the Christus Patiens, naked and wounded, restoring dignity to pain and transforming it into an aesthetic of compassion. It is no coincidence that the liturgy still proclaims today: ‘I announce Thy death, Lord, I proclaim Thy resurrection, in anticipation of Thy coming’. Three pillars: compassion, joy and hope. Francis has given form to this triad, making it a visible culture.

Occam and science

From the same matrix came the thought of William of Occam (1285-1349). With his famous ‘razor’ he gave the Middle Ages a lesson in method that would nourish modern science. It is not paradox but richness: from a religious order born in evangelical poverty spring forth both song and method, joy and reason. A lesson that remains burning today, in the age of fake news and technological manipulation.

Echo, Plato and Aristotle

Umberto Eco (1932-2016) brought all this together in The Name of the Rose (1980). The novel stages the medieval debate on laughter, imagining a lost manuscript of Aristotle’s Poetics (384-322 BC) dedicated to comedy. Plato (427-347 B.C.) mistrusted poets: ‘poets lie’, he wrote, because theatre deceives citizens, leading them to enjoy what in life causes pain, and to laugh at what in life causes only shame. Aristotle, on the contrary, had justified tragedy with the theory of catharsis, which in giving beauty to otherwise mute and chaotic pain, also gives it dignity, but he left us nothing on comedy.
Eco, also inspired by the Franciscan heritage, wanted to fill that gap, reflecting on the justification of comedy as an experience of freedom. Already in the 19th century, however, Dostoevsky in The Brothers Karamazov also recalled that Christ’s first miracle was that of the transformation of water into wine at the Wedding Feast of Cana (Jn 2:1-11): after so much grace, it would be absurd to imagine a sulking Christ sitting in a corner. Thus the circle closes: from the Franciscan Middle Ages to ancient philosophy to contemporary fiction, laughter becomes a critical key to our civilisation.

Dialogue with the Sultan

Francis, in 1219, met Sultan Malik al-Kamil during the Fifth Crusade. It was an extraordinary event: not a confrontation, but a dialogue. In times of walls and mutual mistrust, that meeting appears prophetic today. Francis was not naive: he understood that authentic faith is not affirmed by force, but by the courage of listening. From that seed was born the modern idea of ecumenism and inter-religious dialogue.

4 October and its coincidences

The choice of 4 October is full of symbols. On this day in 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, opening the space age. On October 1582, Pope Gregory XIII introduced the Gregorian calendar, superseding the Julian calendar. Two events that mark, centuries later, the meeting-clash between East and West, between science and faith, between different times. Today they fall on the same day that celebrates Francis: not only a saint, but a symbol of a civilisation capable of dialogue.

But these coincidences do not only speak to us of science and faith, of calendar and space. They also open up a dialogue with the European East. It is no coincidence that some six hundred years after Francis, Dostoevsky was able to write in The Brothers Karamazov – a work that even contains a reference to the Poverello of Assisi, called “Pater Seraphicus” through the words of Father Zosima – that “much on earth is hidden from us, but in return we are granted a secret and intimate sense of our living connection with another world”. Here, as in Franciscanism, suffering and joy find a heavenly justification, a rootedness in a hope that is never mere illusion, but an experience of communion.

The parallelism is not forced: if in the West, the Franciscan Middle Ages come to offer dignity to pain through art and liturgy, in the East Dostoevsky reinterprets this same nucleus in the form of a novel, restoring to European culture an echo of that wisdom that censors neither laughter nor tears. The coincidence of dates, therefore, becomes the symbol of a possible encounter: Francis and Dostoevsky, Assisi and Moscow, Italy and Russia. A plot that reminds contemporary Europe that its future also passes through dialogue with the East.

A provocation for Europe

Europe is ravaged by divisions, wars and nationalism. Rediscovering St Francis as a national holiday is then more than a religious rite: it is a political provocation. It reminds us that our common identity is not only born of economic treaties, but of a culture that knows how to laugh and cry, believe and doubt, represent pain and celebrate dignity. A Europe that forgets this root risks becoming just a market; a Europe that rediscovers it can become a community again.

The legacy of Francis

The Franciscan heritage, with its dance in the squares and with the Stigmata, with Occam’s razor and Giotto’s Christ, with the dialogue with the Sultan and with Echo’s novel, gives us a polemical and very topical lesson: the freedom of tears and laughter is the condition of human dignity. And if today Italy celebrates its feast once again, it is an invitation to Europe: do not fear satire, do not censor pain, but transform both into a force for freedom and hope.

* Stefano Maria Capilupi was born in Rome on December 6, 1973. He graduated in Eastern European History at the University of Rome La Sapienza and earned PhDs in Philosophy and in Slavic Studies. Author of more than 130 publications, including The Tragic and Hope. From Manzoni to Dostoevsky (Lithos Editions, Rome 2020). For Castelvecchi, in 2022 he translated and commented on key chapters of The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky for the book The Poem of the Grand Inquisitor. Between Theodicy and Modernity. He teaches at the University of Cassino.