Guido II of Assisi

Guido II († July 30, 1228 ) was a bishop of Assisi .

After the war of Assisi against Perugia in 1204, Guido was appointed bishop of the Umbrian city as successor to Guido I. In 1206 he presided over the trial in which the wealthy cloth merchant Pietro Bernardone wanted to force his son Giovanni Battista (Francis of Assisi) to return to his parents' household. But after the son had renounced his father in a moving gesture, Guido allowed him to return to the abandoned chapel of San Damiano . This set the course for the foundation of the begging brotherhood of Francis, which the bishop continued to promote. In 1209 he accompanied Francis on a pilgrimage to Rome , where, thanks to the intercession of Guido, Francis received an oral approval from Pope Innocent III for his way of life . received.

Guido also ordered the transfer of the remains of St. Rufinus of Assisi to the Cathedral of San Rufino , where they have been kept ever since. The altar of this cathedral was built on July 16, 1228 by Pope Gregory IX. consecrated, who canonized Francis on this occasion . At the same time, however, the Pope had declared Francis' will, in which he had recorded his concerns for his confreres, to be legally non-binding. Bishop Guido died two weeks later.

Guido gave the same patronage as Francis to Clare of Assisi and her Sisterhood of Poor Clares .

literature

• See the cited literature on Francis of Assisi .
• Luciano Canonici, Guido II d'Assisi: Il vescovo di San Francesco, in: Studi Francescani, Vol. 77 (1980), pp. 187-206.
• Michael Robson, Assisi, Guido II and Saint Francis, in: Greyfriars Review, Vol. 12 (1998), pp. 225-287.

reception

In the Italian-British feature film Brother Sun, Sister Moon (Italian: Fratello sole, sorella luna , 1972), Bishop Guido was portrayed by the British actor John Sharp . In the Italian production Franziskus ( Francesco , 1989; with Mickey Rourke in the title role) the role of the bishop was taken over by the German actor Peter Berling . Berling then made the bishop the main character in his first historical novel " Francis or The Second Memorandum " (1990). In the subsequent novel " The Heretic " (2000) he appears again as a minor character.

annotation

1. ↑ The date of death was recorded in the missal book of the Church of San Nicola di Assisi, which is now in the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore . See Michele Faloci Pulignani, Il messale consultato da s. Francesco quando si converti, in: Miscellanea francescana di storia, di lettere, di arti, Vol. 15 (1914), pp. 33-43.