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Cien anios de la cuestion franciscana. Evolucion de la problematica

SUMMARY: The appearance in 1893 of the Vie de Saint Francois d'Assise, written by Paul Sabatier, marked the beginning of the so-called «Franciscan Questions, the great discussion on the historical and literary level about the identity, the intrinsic value, and the interdepen­dence of the early biographical sources concerning St. Francis. The discussion, which began with the publication of three biographies of St. Francis and the previous studies which had appeared in Acta Sanctorum, has lasted for the best part of a century. During this period va­rious Franciscan sources were edited and, above all, various intellectuals began to study the figure of St. Francis from a new perspective in relation to that of the preceding hagiography. In the course of this hundred years, the «Franciscan Question* has undergone an evolution, the major steps of which are considered here in their fundamental aspects. The first was cen­tred on the discussion concerning the value and priority of 1 Celano and Speculum Perfectio­ns. Almost simultaneously, the related problematic with the legend Trium Sociorum, in which distinguished scholars interested themselves, arose; the discussion has lasted for the greater part of the century and, despite this, some questions have yet to be resolved. In the first de­cades of the polemic, various manuscripts were discovered, or published, with readings or fragments of text which made a notable contribution towards clarifying the problem. Among these discoveries, the most famous was undoubtedly Ms. 1046 in the Communal Library of Perugia, known today as the Compilatio Assisiensis; its appearance focused the «Franciscan Question* upon the material which Crescenzio de Jesi, under orders from the Chapter of Genova in 1244, gathered prior to the redaction of 2 Celano. Various studies have been un­dertaken in this field with diverse results, but all attempts have greatly contributed to the so­lution of the problem. The critical edition of various sources, especially of those known as «official» legends, has contributed in great measure to the clarification of the problematic. This study ends by presenting a synthesis, in nine points, of the actual state of the «ques-tion».