This year marks the 800th anniversary of the death of St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of Italy (along with St. Catherine): the celebrations will culminate on October 4, which, starting in 2026, will once again be a public holiday, with schools closed and workers receiving holiday pay.
We honor his memory with this round, relief-embossed majolica plaque, which depicts him with the stigmata, surrounded by “Brother Wolf” and his bird friends (you can also find it in our online shop).
St. Francis continues to inspire not only believers
The values that Francis embraced and embodied are perhaps even more relevant today than they were in his own time:
- love for creation and respect for the environment, as also expressed in the *Canticle of the Creatures*
- material and spiritual poverty, in order to discover what is truly essential in life
- a commitment to peace and dialogue: not everyone knows that in 1219, in the midst of the Fifth Crusade, Francis met with the Sultan of Egypt (the nephew of the famous Saladin). The meeting was an attempt to find a path to peace and a crucial step toward the beginning of interfaith dialogue between Christians and Muslims.
We like to recall the story of the wolf of Gubbio: according to tradition, the town of Gubbio was terrorized by a ferocious wolf that preyed on livestock and even people (!). The people of Gubbio asked Francis for help, and when he met the wolf, he tamed it, scolding it for its violent acts but acknowledging that they were driven by hunger and desperation. Francis and “Brother Wolf” made a pact: if the wolf stopped its attacks, the people of Gubbio would feed and care for it.
A story that speaks to the potential harmony between humans and nature, but also to the need to forgive and show compassion.
Even today, the wolf is often seen as a threat, but we should appreciate its contribution to the balance of the local ecosystem: as a top predator, the wolf helps keep the populations of wild boars, red deer, roe deer, chamois, and coypu, reducing damage to crops and riverbanks, promoting forest regeneration, and improving the health of wildlife through natural selection.
Even today, just as back then, we need to make a pact with the wolf—and, more broadly, with the natural world around us—to rediscover the beauty of living in peace and harmony.
