Summary: This study analyses the contents of the Lenten sermon that Bernardine of Siena delivers in Florence, in 1425, from which there emerges the social and political sensibility of this Observant preacher. Ample space is given over to the value of alms, underlining almsgiving’s dual aspect, the ethical and the economic, the public and the private. On the one hand indeed, the practice of almsgiving concerns good government, the bonum commune; on the other hand, though, it belongs to the works of mercy privately commended to every Christian. The second part of this article means to put in evidence the high conception of almsgiving attributed to St. Francis, who spoke rather of the poor and not of solving the problem of poverty through the practice of allocating funds. In the conclusion a parallel is being hypothesized between the lives of St. Francis and of St. Bernardine of Siena, insofar as both experienced conversion through the act of renouncing their worldly goods and distributing them to the poor.