ON THE ROAD WITH FRANCIS OF ASSISI

Guided by several medieval biographies whose timelines often do not jibe, former Newsweek editor Francke (Ground Zero, 1997, etc.) amiably follows the trail of Saint Francis, who for most of his adult life was a wandering preacher in the small hill towns of Italy.

Francke begins her journey in Assisi, where Francis was born in 1181, and travels to the places where significant events in his spiritual life occurred. As she and her photographer husband move about through towns and mountaintop hermitages, she tells the story of Francis’s life, from spoiled youth to failed knight and prisoner of war to his conversion from playboy to penitent sworn to vows of obedience, poverty and chastity. Throughout, she recounts the details of numerous miracles ascribed to Francis, not as factual events but as illustrations of life in the Middle Ages, plagued by famine, floods, leprosy and more. She is well aware of the industry surrounding some of the religious sites she visits, and she expresses skepticism about some of the relics that she sees of both Francis and Clare, his most famous convert. Though her take on the stigmata he supposedly bore may offend true believers, this is both a respectful narrative of the life of a man she clearly admires and a gracious account of being a tourist in Italy. One of the book’s highlights is her treatment of Francis’s attempt to convert the sultan of Egypt in 1219 and thus end the Fifth Crusade. He did not succeed, of course, but Francke has a choice story about how he won the sultan’s respect. Also gripping but quite gruesome is her description of the medical procedures inflicted on Francis in the weeks before his death in Assisi in 1226. For anyone wishing to duplicate any or all of her journey, Francke ends with a paragraph of travel notes, suggesting maps, guidebooks, accommodations and car rental options.

A winning combination of travelogue and religious biography.