Francis was born in Assisi in 1181 or 1182, the son of a cloth merchant. After a year as a prisoner of war in Perugia and a long illness, he heard the crucifix at San Damiano tell him to rebuild the Church. He renounced his inheritance publicly before the bishop, repaired small churches with his hands, and in 1209 took his first companions to Rome for the approval of Innocent III.
He preached before the Sultan in Egypt in 1219, built the first Christmas crib at Greccio in 1223, and in 1224 received the stigmata on Mount La Verna. He died at the Porziuncola, the little church in the valley below Assisi, on the evening of October 3, 1226. Gregory IX canonized him on July 16, 1228, less than two years later.
His body was hidden for safety in the basilica built in his honour and rediscovered in 1818. It now rests in a stone tomb in the crypt beneath the Lower Church, surrounded by the graves of four of his first companions. Pilgrims can attend Mass at the tomb, walk up to the hermitage of the Carceri on Mount Subasio, and pray at the Porziuncola inside the Basilica of St. Mary of the Angels.
