On the Road with Francis of Assisi - Annotated by Linda Bird Francke (Paperback)

About the Book

Following the footsteps of St. Francis, this journey through beautiful Italy--and as far east as Palestine and Egypt--brings to life the remarkable career and travels of the most remarkable of all saints.

Book Synopsis

On the Road with Francis of Assisi offers a unique and lively travelogue of parallel journeys: that of Francis of Assisi on his way to sainthood in the thirteenth century, and that of author Linda Bird Francke, who followed his path through the beauty of central and coastal Italy-and even on to Egypt.Francke tells the compelling story of Saint Francis through the many places he visited. She and her husband, Harvey Loomis, used as their guidebooks medieval texts, including the first official biography of the saint, completed in 1229, just three years after he died. Theirs was not a spiritual journey but one based on admiration for a man whose legend continues to inspire and fascinate millions around the world. From Assisi-a small Umbrian town that now draws two million visitors a year, making it second only to Rome as an Italian pilgrimage destination-Saint Francis crisscrossed Italy for twenty years. And so too does the author travel through the "green heart" of Italy to such hill towns and cities as Siena, Bologna, Venice, Gubbio, and Rome, and to the many mountaintop Franciscan sanctuaries from La Verna and Le Celle di Cortona in Tuscany to the Rieti Valley.Along the way, Francke movingly depicts the many miracles Francis performed and draws us into the splendid beauty of the landscape that inspired the saint's love for nature and regard for all living things. Unlike Francis, however, whose asceticism caused him to add ashes to his food to deaden its earthly pleasure, Francke and her husband indulge in the fabled Umbrian cuisine, from wild boar to the region's famed black truffles, and the incomparable local wines.On the Road with Francis of Assisi embraces the spirit and person of its legendary subject, and invites the reader to marvel at his spiritual intensity and follow in his footsteps through the timeless beauty of Italy.

Review Quotes

Advance praise for On the Road with Francis of Assisi"The marvelous and moving story of Francis of Assisi comes to life in this thoroughly engaging and evocative book. The actual towns and churches produce a map of a journey you would give anything to make, in the saint's very footsteps. The book is a pleasure from beginning to end."-James Salter, author of Last Night"This entertaining and enlightening biographical travelogue describes vividly Francis of Assisi's growth from a wild and spoiled youth to a selfless itinerant preacher, passionate defender of the poor, and lover of all living things, who became one of the most beloved of religious figures, even among nonbelievers."-Mario Cuomo"In retracing the travels of the medieval saint who rattled all of Christendom, Linda Bird Francke has marvelously woven together the realities of the thirteenth century with those of the twenty-first in a way that will delight and inform readers, whether they are tramping the hill towns of Umbria or dreaming at home in their armchairs."-Peter Steinfels, co-director of the Fordham Center on Religion and Culture, author of A People Adrift: The Crisis of the Roman Catholic Church in America

About the Author

Linda Bird Francke, a former editor at Newsweek and award-winning journalist, is the author of Ground Zero: The Gender Wars in the Military and Growing Up Divorced. She lives in Sagaponack, New York, with her husband, Harvey Loomis.