Synopsis

Inspired by the Italian frescoes that depict the life of St. Francis of Assisi, Valerie Martin examines the life of Francesco di Pietro Bernardone in a series of vivid “panels” that rediscover the saint in moments both crucial and ordinary.  Drawing from myriad sources, she begins in the dark, final days, with a suffering Francesco on the verge of death, then shows us the unwashed and innocent revolutionary, unafraid to lecture a pope.   We see his mystical friendship with Chiara di Offreducci, a nobleman’s daughter who turns her back on the world to join him, and finally, the frivolous young Francesco on the deserted road where his encounter with a leper leads him to an ecstatic embrace of God. Salvation is at once an illumination of the medieval world and a portrait of an enduring icon of the Western imagination.