[35] This strange personality will charm historians and philosophers for a long while to come. I know nothing more learned or more luminous than M. Felice Tocco's fine study in his _Eresia nel medio evo_, Florence, 1884, 1 vol., 12mo, pp. 261-409. [36] A. SS., Sept., t. vii., p. 283 ff. [37] A. SS., Maii, vii.; Vincent de Beauvais, _Speculum historiale_, _lib._ 29, _cap._ 40. La Sila is a wooded mountain, situated eastward from Cosenza, which the peasants call _Monte Nero_. The summits are nearly 2,000 metres above the sea. [38] Toward 1195. Gioacchino died there, March 30, 1202. [39] A whole apochryphal literature has blossomed out around Gioacchino; certain hypercritics have tried to prove that he never wrote anything. These are exaggerations. Three large works are certainly authentic: _The Agreement of the Old and New Testaments_, _The Commentary on the Apocalypse_, and _The Psaltery of Ten Strings_, published in Venice, the first in 1517, the two others in 1527. His prophecies were so well known, even in his lifetime, that an English Cistercian, Rudolph, Abbot of Coggeshall ([Cross] 1228), coming to Rome in 1195, sought a conference with him and has left us an interesting account of it. Martene, _Amplissima Collectio_, t. v., p. 839. [40] _Comm. in apoc._, folio 78, b. 2. [41] _Qui vere monachus est nihil reputat esse suum nisi citharam:_ Apoc., ib., folio 183. a. 2. [42] E. Roth, _Die Visionen der heiligen Elisabeth von Schoenau_: Bruenn, 1884, pp. 115-117. * * * * * CHAPTER IV STRUGGLES AND TRIUMPH Spring of 1206-February 24, 1209 The biographies of St. Francis have preserved to us an incident which shows how great was the religious ferment even in the little city of Assisi. A stranger was seen to go up and down the streets saying to every one he met, "Peace and welfare!" (_Pax et bonum._)[1] He thus expressed in his own way the disquietude of those hearts which could neither resign themselves to perpetual warfare nor to the disappearance of faith and love; artless echo, vibrating in response to the hopes and fears that were shaking all Europe! _"Vox clamantis in deserto!"_ it will be said. No, for every heart-cry leaves its trace even when it seems to be uttered in empty air, and that of the Unknown of Assisi may have contributed in some measure to Francis's definitive call. Since his abrupt return from Spoleto, life in his father's house had become daily more difficult. Bernardone's self-love had received from his son's discomfiture such a wound as with commonplace men is never healed. He might provide, without counting it, money to be swallowed up in dissipation, that so his son might stand on an equal footing with the young nobles; he could never resign himself to see him giving with lavish hands to every beggar in the streets.