St Francis of Assisi, who founded the Franciscan order, is one of Catholicism’s most revered saints. After Christ and the Virgin Mary, he is the most depicted figure within Catholic art, literature and film.
The patron saint of the environment, St Francis is best known for his love of animals and the natural world. Famously, he preached to the birds and referred to all creatures – including the stars and planets – as his beloved “brothers and sisters”.
When Francis died in 1226, fears that his body would be stolen meant that it was placed in an iron cage and buried so deep beneath the basilica in Assisi, Italy, that its whereabouts remained a mystery for 600 years. Aside from his fame for miracles and holiness, and subsequent canonisation in 1228, the reason Francis’s body was hidden was what it contained.
