The vale of Umbria is the place for poets; it should be visited in the summer, when the roses bloom on the trellises which the early Italian painters put as backgrounds to their mothers and children. Florence is not far away; and near is the birthplace of one of the fathers of the sonnet, Fra Guittone, and of another poet, Propertius. Francis's childhood, boyhood, and later youth were happy. His father denied him no luxury in his power to give; he was sent to the priests of the church of St. George. They taught him some Latin and much of the Provencal tongue,--for at that time there was no Italian language; there were only dialects, and the Provencal was used by the elegant, those who loved poetry. Francis Bernardone was one of these; he sang the popular Provencal songs of the day to the lute, for he had learned music. And so passionately did he long for "excess of it," that, the legend says, he stayed up all one night singing a duet with a nightingale. The bird conquered; and later, Francis made a poem glorifying the Creator who had given such a thrilling voice to it. Up to the age of twenty-four Francis had been one of the lightest hearted and the lightest headed of the rich young men of Assisi. His father openly rejoiced in his extravagance, and admired the graceful manner with which he wore gay clothes cut in latest fashions of France. Madonna Pica, his mother, trembled for his future, while she adored him and in spite of herself believed in him. Her neighbors reproached her: "Your son throws money away; he is the son of a prince!" And Pica, troubled, answered, "He whom you call the child of a prince will one day be a child of God." Pietro was delighted to see his son lead in all the sports of the _corti_ of Assisi. The _corti_ were associations of young men addicted to Provencal poetry and music and all sorts of gayety. Folgore da San Gemiano gives, in a series of sonnets, well translated by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, descriptions of their sports arranged according to the months. March was the season for "--lamprey, salmon, eel, and trout, Dental and dolphin, sturgeon, all the rout Of fish in all the streams that fill the seas." In April are dances:-- "And through hollow brass A sound of German music on the air." When summer came, Folgore says the _corti_ had other things:-- "For July, in Siena by the willow-tree I give you barrels of white Tuscan wine, In ice far down your cellars stored supine; And morn and eve to eat, in company, Of those vast jellies dear to you and me; Of partridges and youngling pheasants sweet, Boiled capons, sovereign kids;--and let their treat Be veal and garlic, with whom these agree."