This volume unites a team of distinguished scholars from France, Germany, Italy, the UK, and the USA to celebrate Rosalind B. Brooke’s immense contribution to Franciscan studies over the last 60 years. It is divided into four sections, beginning with an appraisal of Dr Brooke’s influence upon Franciscan studies. The second section contains a series of historical studies and expressions of the Franciscan spirit. Hagiographical studies occupy the third section, reflecting the friars’ ministry and the thirst for the renewal of the Franciscan vision. The fourth part explores the art and iconographical images of St. Francis and his friars. These innovative studies reflect new insights into and interpretations of Franciscan life in the Middle Ages. Contributors are (n order of appearance) Michael W. Blastic, O.F.M., Maria Pia Alberzoni, Bert Roest, Michael F. Cusato, O.F.M., Jens Röhrkasten, David Luscombe, Luigi Pellegrini. Peter Murray Jones, Maria Teresa Dolso, Michael J.P. Robson, André Vauchez, David Burr, William R. Cook, Nigel Morgan, and Kathleen Giles Arthur.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements List of Illustrations Abbreviations Notes on contributors Publications of Rosalind B. Brooke (née Clark) Introduction Part 1: Historiography of Rosalind B. Brooke 1 Rosalind Brooke and the ‘Franciscan Question’  Michael W. Blastic, O.F.M. 2 La rivoluzionaria rivisitazione della figura di Elia di Cortona nella storiografia francescana: il fondamentale contributo di Rosalind B. Brooke nel suo Early Franciscan Government  Maria Pia Alberzoni 3 Rosalind Brooke’s Analysis of Elias and Early Franciscan Government: The ‘Misadventure’ of a Sober and Analytical Work of Historical Scholarship  Bert Roest Part 2: History 4 Fraternal Twins? John of Parma, Humbert of Romans and the Joint Encyclical of 1255  Michael F. Cusato, O.F.M. 5 Unity and Diversity in the Franciscan Order under Bonaventure  Jens Röhrkasten 6 John Pecham, Jerarchie  David Luscombe 7 “Ordo Missalis Fratrum Minorum secundum Consuetudinem Romane Curie”: un prezioso codice del secolo XIII/XIV dall’Italia agli Stati Uniti  Luigi Pellegrini 8 William Holme, medicus, OFM (fl. 1380–1415)  Peter Murray Jones Part 3: Hagiographical Sources 9 From Simplicitas to Sapientia: Anthony of Padua in the Context of Thirteenth-Century Franciscanism  Maria Teresa Dolso 10 A Profile of the Friars Minor in the Compilatio Assisiensis and the De adventu Fratrum Minorum in Angliam: Some Comparisons and Contrasts  Michael J.P. Robson 11 Saint Francis of Assisi and Franciscan Saints in Italian Preaching: From the Thirteenth to the Beginning of the Fourteenth Century  André Vauchez Part 4: Art 12 Art and History in Early Olivian Exegesis  David Burr 13 Who was Francis in the Thirteenth Century? An Iconographical Inquiry  William R. Cook 14 The Franciscans in the Commentary Illustrations of the Gulbenkian and Abingdon Apocalypses  Nigel Morgan 15 Alter Christus, Patriarcha Pauperum, Poverello: Bernardine of Siena and Observant Reform in Fifteenth-Century Images of Saint Francis  Kathleen Giles Arthur Bibliography Index