FOOTNOTES

1. The passes that give access to the Casentino have all about one thousand metres of altitude. Until the most recent years there was no road properly so called.

2. In France Mount Aiguille, one of the seven wonders of Dauphiny, presents the same aspect and the same geological formation. St. Odile also recalls the Verna, but is very much smaller.

3. The summit has an altitude of 1269 metres. In Italian they call it the Verna, in Latin Alvernus. The etymology, which has tested the acuteness of the learned, appears to be very simple; the verb vernare, used by Dante, signifies make cold, freeze.

4. Name of the highest point on the plateau. Hardly three-quarters of an hour from the monastery, and not two hours and a half, as these worthy anchorites believed. This is said for the benefit of tourists ... and pilgrims.

5. The forest has been preserved as a relic. Alexander IV. fulminated excommunication against whomever should cut down the firs of Verna. As to the birds, it is enough to pass a day at the monastery to be amazed at their number and variety. M. C. Beni has begun at Stia (in Casentino) an ornithological collection which already includes more than five hundred and fifty varieties.

6. 1 Cel., 91; Bon., 188; Fior. i., consid.

7. Fior. i., consid.; Conform., 176b, 1.

8. Cel., 2, 15; Bon., 100. Fior. i., consid.

9. Bon., 118. Fior. i., consid.

10. 2 Cel., 100.

11. Fior. ii., consid.

12. The ruins of the castle of Chiusi are three quarters of an hour from Verna.

13. Fior. iv. and v. consid. These two considerations appear to be the result of a reworking of the primitive document. The latter no doubt included the three former, which the continuer has interpolated and lengthened. Cf. Conform., 231a, 1; Spec., 91b, 92a, 97; A. SS., pp. 860 ff.

14. In current language we often include under the word mysticism all the tendencies—often far from Christian—which give predominance in the religious life to vague poetic elements, impulses of the heart. The name of mystic ought to be applied only to those Christians to whom immediate relations with Jesus form the basis of the religious life. In this sense St. Paul (whose theologico-philosophical system is one of the most powerful efforts of the human mind to explain sin and redemption) is at the same time the prince of mystics.

15. He did not desire to institute a religion, for he felt the vanity of observances and dogmas. (The apostles continued to frequent the Jewish temple. Acts, ii., 46; iii., 1; v., 25; xxi., 26.) He desired to inoculate the world with a new life.

16. 2 Cel., 3, 29; cf. 1 Cel., 115; 3 Soc., 13 and 14; 2 Cel., 1, 6; 2 Cel., 3, 123 and 131; Bon., 57; 124; 203; 204; 224; 225; 309; 310; 311; Conform., 229b ff.

17. 1 Cel., 91-94; Bon., 189, 190.

18. See the annotations of Brother Leo upon the autograph of St. Francis (Crit. Study, p. 357) and 1 Cel., 94, 95; Bon., 191, 192, 193 (3 Soc., 69, 70); Fior. iii. consid. Cf. Auct. vit. sec.; A. SS. p. 649. It is to be noted that Thomas of Celano (1 Cel., 95), as well as all the primitive documents, describe the stigmata as being fleshy excrescences, recalling in form and color the nails with which the limbs of Jesus were pierced. No one speaks of those gaping, sanguineous wounds which were imagined later. Only the mark at the side was a wound, whence at times exuded a little blood. Finally, Thomas of Celano says that after the seraphic vision began to appear, cœperunt apparere signa clavorum. Vide Appendix: Study of the Stigmata.