The authorship of the “Sacrum Commercium” has been freely ascribed to the Blessed Giovanni da Parma, seventh Minister General of the Friars Minor in succession to Saint Francis. I would with all my heart that he were the author, for Giovanni is one of the brightest lights of the Order, and both by his love and practice of Poverty, and by his great endowments, is the ideal author for so exquisite an allegory. The “Chronica xxiv. Generalium,” which was completed in 1379, and begun perhaps twenty years earlier, distinctly states that Giovanni is the author (“quendam libellum devotum composuit quem intitulavit Commercium Paupertatis”),[7] and this opinion was followed by all succeeding old writers (except Fra Bartolommeo da Pisa, who makes no attempt to assign authorship), and most moderns, including Professor Alvisi, M. Sabatier,[8] Professor Umberto Cosmo,[9] and the latest biographer of the Blessed, Fra Luigi da Parma.[10] But all the Codexes which Père Edouard d’Alençon cites, as also a Codex in the Bodleian and another in the Communal library at Siena, give the date of composition as the month of July after the death of Saint Francis, that is to say July, 1227. (_Actum est hoc opus mense Julii post obitum Beatissimi Francisci, anno Millesimo ducentesimo vigesimo septimo ab Incarnatione Domini Salvatoris Nostri Jesu Christi._) If this date be correct, then the Blessed Giovanni could not have been its author, for he was only born in 1208, and did not enter the Order until after 1230. There is the point that Mediæval scribes were given (like other mortals) to making errors in dates, more especially when they were in Roman figures, and these errors would have been propagated from Codex to Codex. We have the well-known instance of the Mazarin Codex No. 1743, where the erroneous date of 1228 led a distinguished French critic to look upon the “Speculum Perfectionis” as the oldest biography of St Francis. The date was probably 1318, and it will be seen how easily a slip might be made between MCCXXVIII and MCCCXVIII.[11] But in favour of the date of 1227 for the “Sacrum Commercium” we have not only the fact that the date is written in words and not in figures, but that the “explicit” distinctly states that it was finished in the July after the death of St Francis. Such extreme precision does not leave much room for error. Moreover, there is practically no serious internal evidence against the date 1227. It is true that the Casanatese Codex, at the beginning of Chap. iv. speaks of “_Sanctum_ Franciscum,” whereas St Francis was not canonized until 1228. But this, even if some refuse to translate it simply “the holy Francis,” and insist upon “_St_ Francis,” I think it is fair to regard as the slip of a scribe, more especially as the Vincenzian Codex gives “beatum” in the same place, and both Italian versions have “beato.” There is, therefore, no substantial reason why we may not regard the “Sacrum Commercium”