(Published in Il Popolo d'Italia, November 28, 1925)
By Benito Mussolini
Not only has Italy furnished the greatest poetical genius in Dante; the most audacious navigator of the ocean in Columbus; the most profound interpreter in art and sciences in Leonardo, but with St. Francis Italy has also given the most holy of the Saints to Christianity and to humanity. Together with the height of intelligence, our people are characterized by simplicity of the spirit, the ardor of the conquest of ideals, and, when appropriate, the virtue of mortification and sacrifice. Indeed, it was through the Saint of Assisi, who lived before the time of the great men just named, that Italy—though still restrained by rough medieval labour—revealed, one might say, the first signs of her rebirth and re-affirmed her qualities of goodness and humaneness.
St. Francis, after having taken part in the communal struggles, rose suddenly, as if he were superhuman, on the fluctuating coruscation of the passion of his century, raising in his thin hand the Cross, the glorious symbol of charity and peace. Being the restorer of the religion of Christ, he is also one of our earliest poets, and certainly the first who gave a characteristic substance to original poetry, both profound and universal. In the language in which, a century later, Dante wrote the Divine Comedy, he, the Saint of Poverty, composed the Canticles of the Creatures. The fervor of the Apostles is suddenly revived in him and overwhelms his Italian soul. Refusing rest and comfort, Francis of Assisi looks beyond the boundaries of his own land, not large enough to satisfy his thirst for sacrifice and service.
The vessel, which carried towards the East the herald of an immortal doctrine, carried at its helm the infallible destiny of our race which is returning to the way of our forefathers. And the disciples of the Saint who, after him, moved towards the Levant, were at once missionaries of Christ and missionaries of Italianism. Around the revered tomb at the foot of mount Subasio, a light that knows no darkness had commenced to shine, and hastened the emerging arts of Italy to build, as if through a magical impetus of creative power, the temple of the most striking beauty. Franciscan art and activity was thus born. Guided by the Italian spirit, it radiated throughout the world. Wherever today, in any land on any continent, we hear the name of the Saint, be it in the splendor of humility and suffering or in the works constructed on his behalf, there we find a foot print of our country. In 1926, seven hundred years will have elapsed since the death of St. Francis, and Italy, with a renewed soul, turns with reverence to the memory of the sublime animator. Italians abroad who exalt the Saint in their impressive gatherings, churches and schools, in their Associations and in the shelters of charity, must be proud to accompany in their superb rituals the name of Italy, from whence arose in the world the light of this marvelous dawn.
