The influence of the Franciscan movement on literature and art has been made the subject of a number of interesting inquiries. Ozanam was the first to analyse it in its bearings on Italian poetry. The _Canticle of the Sun_ (_Laudes Creaturarum_) by St Francis, is among the earliest poems in the vernacular, and it led to the composition of numerous poems and hymns. Apparently St Francis in early days himself sang the songs of the troubadours, and among his first converts was a troubadour who was afterwards known as Fra Pacifico. Hence an element in the religious poems of the Franciscans which reflects the poet’s delight in nature and the beggar’s freedom from care. Many celebrated hymns were written by Franciscans, among them the _Dies Irae_, first sung by Thomas of Celano, and the _Stabat Mater Dolorosa_ written by Jacopone of Todi, a famous and prolific poet. As a companion to the _Stabat Mater Dolorosa_, the Hymn of the Virgin at the Cross, Jacopone afterwards wrote the _Stabat Mater Speciosa_, the Hymn of the Virgin at the cradle; the keynote of the one is sorrow, the keynote of the other is joy. The study of Ozanam on the influence of the Franciscans on Italian literature might be extended to other countries. Some of the earliest and most beautiful writings in Middle English were the outcome of Franciscan influence. Wherever the friars gained a foothold they succeeded in identifying themselves with popular and national interests, and the Christianity which they preached was as a light by which the common realities of life appeared more beautiful and more worthy of praise in sermon and song. In regard to art, Ruskin long ago drew attention to the spirit which the friars infused into painting; his keen sense of beauty and his desire for religious exaltation were soothed by no art so well as by that of the Quattrocento. In Italian painting the friars inaugurated a new era. Since the days when Byzantine artists had decorated churches and chapels with mosaics, practically no attempt had been made to represent incidents of Biblical history and saint legend in church. The friars were the first to favour the idea of having the stories of religion set forth on a large scale in effective and inexpensive frescoes. And compared to the artists of the Byzantine School, these painters were animated by the health-giving breath of a new kind of realism. To the Byzantine, as interpreted by his work, dispassionateness appeared as an adjunct of holiness in the saint. The fresco painter, on the contrary, did not hesitate in animating the saints with passion, which appears as additional strength, since it is passion brought well under control.