Customer Reviews

The Road to Assisi: The Essential Biography of St. Francis

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I found this book to be the best overall introduction to the life of the saint I've ever read. The editor has taken the best of all of the other books on Francis and incorporated quotes, historical tidbits, literary allusions (i.e. Umberto Eco), maps, and helpful information for anyone headed to Assisi in with Sabatier's classic (and somewhat tragic) story of Francis. A gem.

The Road to Assisi is a factual, well-researched, unsentimental biography of St. Francis. Written in 1894 by Paul Sabatier, the book became a bestseller throughout Europe and made the Vatican's infamous "index" of forbidden books. Sabatier, a French Protestant wrote a very objective biography that portrays Francis favorably, but tells how his order of spiritual brothers was challenged by ecclesiastical authorities. I was surprised to learn that meek and gentle Francis could also be bold, stern, and assertive in many situations. He did not go gently when he reprimanded his brothers and there were several occassions when he did so.

It's a good translation and finely edited by John Sweeney, who has added sidebar annotations that contribute to understanding the people and places in Francis's time.

Now in a new edition edited and with an introduction and annotation Jon Sweeny, The Road To Assisi: The Essential Biography of St. Francis was first published in French in 1894, as the first attempt at a modern biography of St. Francis, one of the most beloved figures of Christian history. Author Paul Sabatier struggled to answer the question: who was Francis the man? Groundbreaking research reveals the a fully human portrayal of a man who was nonetheless gentle, passionate, joyful, and who desired to live as Jesus once taught his disciples. An extraordinary work that covers Francis' weaknesses as surely as his strengths, enhanced by the annotation and sidebars that place events of Francis' life in historical context. Highly recommended for individual reading as well as biography shelves, and a must-have for library collections.

Professor Sabatier's long-out-of-print work is the ur-text of Francis biographies, the one to which most of the contemporary biographers refer most centrally in their own work (Julien Green in particular). Therefore, reading this text in its particular historical and scholarly context is essential; to truly appreciate Sabatier's intervention into the popular and scholarly understanding of St. Francis is to have ready reference to the body of work, and the weight of tradition, to which Sabatier was responding. Unfortunately, Mr. Sweeney sees fit to excise just this apparatus in his "edition" of Sabatier; he cuts out Sabatier's Introduction, condenses several chapters, and replaces Sabatier's footnotes and bibliography with his own commentaries and explanations of the text, set right into the margins of Sabatier's own text, and a cursory bibliography that cuts out the vast majority of Sabatier's own points of reference. Scholars are left without resources for critical or comparative study, and readers who wish to learn more about Francis are pushed into Mr. Sweeney's particular framework of understanding with little warning. I hope another more reputable publisher sees fit to reprint Sabatier's seminal work in an uncompromised edition; until that happens, let the reader beware.

In some ways, this is a difficult book to judge. Though the author of this biography is Paul Sabatier, what we are reading is a translation from the French of a book written over a century ago. But it's even more difficult because this isn't even a new translation; in fact, it's the editing and reworking of a translation that is now nearly a century old. With annotations thrown in to boot. And all this extra work has been done by a man named Jon M. Sweeny.

So let me first say this about Sabatier's text as we have it here: it comes across as a fair outline of Francis' life. Sabatier tries his best to stay away from legend and stick to what can be verified about Francis though he can't resist relating some of the more famous stories which is not necessarily a bad thing. And he is frank when he relates something that is like embellished or untrue. If his language and understanding of events seems a little dated, the reader can forgive him for that since there is a lot of valuable information here.

Sweeny's work, however, is more suspect. I wish I had read an un-cut version of Sabatier's work before this so I could better judge the effects of Sweeny's "reworking." On the other hand, I feel much more confident in saying that I found the annotations to be a waste of space. Only very rarely did I find an annotation that I felt added to the reading experience by filling in some detail that Sabatier did not cover in his text. For the most part, the annotations were, at best, uninteresting and, at worst, pointless. And why annotate Sabatier with quotations from Sabatier? It's bad enough the annotations were mainly quotations from other authors, but why quote Sabatier in Sabatier? If it is important enough to annotate, it is important enough to leave in the text instead of editing it out.

In the final analysis, this book is a worthwhile read; particularly if you, like me, enjoy reading old scholarly works to find how our understanding and tastes have changes through the centuries. However, I would suggest tracking down a copy of the original text first. The changes and annotations made here seem to me less than worthwhile.

I have been an admirer of St. Francis since my youth. I have, however, not known many specifics of his life. This biography was helpful to understand the man in his own times. This book was originally written by Sabatier in French in 1906. This English edition follows the Houghton's translation but the editor adds helpful annotations to provide more historical background, or expand on various aspects of the story.

This is an admirable, readable, and inspiring book, which develops a realistic portrait of Francis as a product of his times, including some of the puzzling, and irritating acceptance of and commitment to some beliefs or assumptions of the ignorant age, and a puzzling commitment to the formalities and liturgy of the Catholic Church, including obedience to authorities whom he felt were unspiritual and unaware of the spiritual realities he felt had been revealed to him as the basis of his mission in life.

His commitment to humility and deference became his undoing at the hands of the unscrupulous, power-oriented Cardinal Ugolino, who later became Pope Gregory IX. This manipulator wrested the new, unique and troubling Franciscan order from Francis' control with his acquiescence, because Francis felt obligated by the consistency of his own Rule of life and mission to bow to Ugolino's demand, after months of badgering in which he kept trying to make his viewpoint and call clear.

Francis never gave up on his attempt to faithfully follow the insights of his calling to non-conformity. Because of the changes made by Ugolino, even before Francis' death, his order had become just one more of the hierarchy's ecclesiastical arms, opposite to the original intention of the founder.

I read this book for several reasons.I belong to a Parish named,St.Francis of Assisi,I know some people who volunteer where meals are served to the needy called St.Francis' Table,We attend an annual St.Francis' Blessing of Animals (pets),a friend recently made a Pilgrimage to Italy,which included a visit to Assisi where she obtained this book,I actually knew very little about the life of St.Francis,and have for a long time been interested in Medevial History.
I found this an excellent book in every respect.I learned many things that,despite my longtime awareness of St.Francis,I really did not know very much about him at all.
It is a book that is very well written,easy to follow,filled with facts and information, and to me did not suffer from the fact that it was written so long ago,translated from its original French and profusely edited and annoted.
It goes without saying,that the book does an excellent job of explaining,often through his own words,who St.Francis was,and why he became one of the Churche's best known,important and loved Saints.
To anyone who is interested in Medevial History;it is a wonderful insight into the everyday life of people in this area during the Middle Ages ,during the life of St. Francis ( 1182-1226 ).It shows how the Church was intimately involved and a part of everyone's way of life and culture. This is at the height of the period referred to as The Crusades;however for whatever reason,they did not seem to affect St. Francis or even his life to any great extent.We do learn that he was a Knight in his early days,his father was a wealthy merchant and his mother was of nobel birth.He also made excursions associated with the Crusades to the Middle East and the Holy Land;but his involvement in fighting and battles was very minimal.We see he could have,and at times lived an extravagent life,but gave it all up for a life of self imposed hardship,poverty and struggle for what he believed in and what led to is becoming a Saint.
For many of the latter years of his short lifespan of only 44 years,he was frail and sick.What the reason for his illness is not clear,and he received little real medical help. Although we must realize, that at that time ,there wasvery little effective medical knowledge and lifespan was much less than today;especially if one became sick or injured.
This would be an excellent book to read if anyone wants to know about St.Francis,who the Franciscians are,and particularly if you plan a visit to Assisi.

Paul Sabatier's "The Road to Assisi: The Essential Biography of St. Francis" is 187 pages long with several drawings and maps, along with two glossaries and a subject index. It is considered to be the first modern biography of Francis and, as such, is often considered to be an essential retelling of the story.

The book's format has several strengths. It does not get caught up in unnecessary details and moves along quite speedily, providing a good balance between breadth and depth. It also does not shy away from showing the very human side of Francis in his temptations, regrets, worries, and fears. I found the editor's commentaries in boxes throughout the text generally helpful to contextualize what was being read, especially regarding the social and political circumstances. There was also some attempt to get to the historical truths of Francis' story by relying on the few first hand documents written by Francis and early biographies, rather than appealing to much later fanciful works.

With regard to Francis himself, he was clearly an inspiring figure who had a calling from God to preach the good news of Jesus Christ and help the needy. He clearly catalyzed a movement that impacted the church and the society of the time, and his influence can be felt to this day. I believe he was a genuine apostolic man. However, I found his morbid fascination with suffering to be misplaced and unbiblical, in part, based on his misunderstanding of Scripture and/or of developing his practice based on a few isolated texts from the Gospels. Moreover, his anti-intellectualism may have been a well-placed reaction to the dry orthodoxy of the church at the time, but it is certainly not a biblical idea, e.g. the Bible enjoins us to worship God with our minds too, God used Paul's great learning to great effect, etc. Finally, a great irony was that Francis' allegiance to the institutional church of the day eventually was one of the causes of the institutionalization and corruption of the very movement he started. It may have been better for him to keep true to his ideals by refusing Papal approval and being willing to withstand persecution like similar movements, i.e. Waldensians, Lollards, Quakers, etc.

All in all, this is a very good introduction to Francis's life, thought, and ministry, which have to some degree been influential in my own work of catalyzing a back-to-basics network of simple/house churches in my nation and beyond.

RAD ZDERO, author of LETTERS TO THE HOUSE CHURCH MOVEMENT and THE GLOBAL HOUSE CHURCH MOVEMENT

The physical condition of this book is "like new" except that the inside is upside down from the cover. This doesn't make it unreadable - just annoying when you pick it up and don't remember to turn it.