The garden of St. Francis

Francis wanted the garden to provide vegetables for food, as well as aromatic and medicinal herbs to treat the community, and to leave a part uncultivated, so that nature could bestow its bounty, left free to grow, flourish and decide for itself. The uncultivated area symbolised faith in the gift of creation, and thus a willingness to rely on God’s generosity rather than one’s own ability to control and manipulate the earth. The necessity of preserving primal nature and respecting future possibility now seems to be a tribute to biodiversity, a powerful appeal to limit our impact on the world and let the laws of nature unfold, with an awareness of our role in the world as custodians and not masters. A garden, like a forest, is a ‘communal home’ and not just private property. The Garden of St. Francis sends us a powerful message about respect for the planet and all the life forms that populate it. It encourages us to hold onto a part of the garden within ourselves that is not cultivated, not guided by the rules of efficiency and results, but is open to contemplation and harmony. It reminds us of the interconnection between humans and the environment, providing a more harmonious view of our interactions with the natural world.

The project displays an area cultivated as a spiritual and cultural journey within the monumental complex of Santa Croce, a path that, in particular, offers a vision of the relationship between St. Francis and nature, starting from the Canticle of the Creatures, combined with the re-enactment of vegetable gardens during the Middle Ages and finding the most cultivated vegetables and medicinal plants of that era.

It all started from the study of the vast corpus of the Franciscan Sources, which gather together all the main transcripts  relating to the origins of the Franciscan movement, to comprehend which were the elements that characterized Francis’s vegetable garden such as his choice to dedicate space both to edible vegetables and to those for medicinal use, to leave a part of the garden uncultivated to allow the plants to grow freely according to their nature and to the grace and praise of God, as well as the choice to not set out clear boundaries, therefore renouncing private property and for the reception of the so-called "weeds" that in the thoughts of the Saint of Assisi must enjoy an equal dignity to the cultivated ones.

To better understand the characteristics of vegetable gardens during the Middle Ages, reference was made to the text of Valafrido Strabone, a ninth-century monk from Reichenau. Hortulus or Liber de cultura hortorum, a precise guide from which we can derive indications on how to organize cultivated spaces: vegetables and flowers should be arranged in square or rectangular flowerbeds, raised above ground level, in the form of wooden boxes arranged in a chessboard pattern.

Regarding the choice of the species of plants to be grown in the garden, reference was made to the previous medieval literature of an agrological and alimurgical type (i.e. linked to the practice of feeding on edible wild products), starting from Strabane’s own text, to move on to the Capitulare de villis, issued by Charlemagne at the end of the eighth century, to regulate rural activities and crops imposed on the villas of the Empire,  with about 70 species of plants, and then compare the species mentioned with the list of plants mentioned in the texts of Hildegard of Bingen or those of the Salernitana School.

For the botanical elements, trees and plants that were part of the Saints life as can be deduced from the reading of the Franciscan Sources were chosen, such as the parsley requested by the Saint to his brethren in order to alleviate stomach pains, or more majestic plants that are often linked to miraculous events and anecdotes from the life of Francis.

The ancient iconography of the vegetable gardens, which faithfully follows the widely spread and accepted indications of Strabone was also important. From the oldest one, such as the ninth century plan of the vegetable garden of the St. Gall monastery in Switzerland, with its rectangular flowerbeds, to even later depictions taken from illuminated manuscripts of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, that were the basis of the remaking of the monastic vegetable gardens of many European abbeys, such as the famous vegetable gardens of the Notre Dame d'Orsan priory.

Cannabis sativa L. Urtica dioica L., Linum usitatissimum L.

Hemp, Nettle and Flax have long been used in the making of textiles and garments. They are associated with the habit of St. Francis, a plain and modest robe made of a coarse cloth: “he made a robe for himself that bore the image of the cross; he made it so plain and coarse that the world could never have desired it.” Habits were often made of woollen or linen fabrics, which were easy to get hold of and work. These materials were prized for their hard-wearing durability, and the natural earth-colour evoked the lark’s natural plumage, which “sets an example to the pious that they should not wear fine and elegant robes, but those of a dull hue, like that of the earth.”

(Taken from the Compilation Fonti Francescane, 356 and 1560).

For Saint Francis, the wildflower meadow represented beauty: “He said that the friar gardener should make a beautiful little garden in some part of the vegetable patch to sow and plant all sorts of sweet-smelling herbs and flowers, so that during the blooming season they would inspire all those who saw them to praise God, for every creature says and cries out: God has made me for you, oh man.”

(Taken from the Compilation Fonti Francescane, 1623).