Abstract

With the contributions of French-German romantic historiography, the musical fortune of St. Francis widened and the homages of the German Carl Loewe (the Lied Der heilige Franciscus, 1837), of the Hungarian Franz Liszt (Cantico del Sol, 1862; La prédication aux oiseaux, 1863), of the Belgian Edgar Tinel (the oratorio Franciscus, 1888), of the French Charles Gounod (the oratorio Saint François d’Assise, 1891), emerged for quality and adherence to the figure of the Seraphic. Considering the delay of the Italian culture in accepting the poet Francis and the difficulties suffered by the Franciscan Order in the 19th century, it can be said that with these composers, Europe preceded Italy and the laity anticipated the composers of the Order in singing the Poverello of Assisi. Their works, which highlight visual (Giotto, Murillo) or literary references (Fioretti, Dante), are also presented in relation to the Franciscan musical production guidelines of the following century, that they had preannounced.