Francis was born to a cloth merchant in Assisi and lived a fashionable youth, dreaming of military glory. After captivity in a war between Italian cities and a long illness, something turned. He kissed a leper on the road; he heard a voice from the cross of San Damiano say "Rebuild my Church"; he stripped naked in the public square, returning his clothes to his outraged father, and walked away to live in absolute poverty.
Disciples gathered. Francis preached to them and to the birds, to popes and to sultans (he once crossed the lines of a Crusade to meet the Sultan of Egypt). He composed the Canticle of the Sun, the first great poem in Italian. In 1224, on Mount La Verna, he received the stigmata — the wounds of Christ — the first recorded recipient. He died two years later, singing.