...And Saint Francis? Why a layman as me did choose to tackle to a Saint? Before all because Francis is, today maybe more than yesterday, Saint, but also a great poet. A poet who liked to sing. Here is: what pushed me to put in music some of his writings and episodes of his life, drawn of the Franciscan Fonts, that was above all the will to give back a voice to his words, so that they can be sung again. In Francis the man (and Saint) what always fascinated me it's the joie de vivre; his choice of poverty "ever detached of joy". And his being, in this sense, very distant of the faces sad and excited of the traditional monastic spirituality. The image of St. Francis, today, appears to me fragile and, at the same time, extraordinarily vigorous. Living and present. Close to the passions and the big contemporary problems as poverty, the illness, the war, the report with others and with the environment. A face exemplary and exceptional of a completely Christian man in his choice to live the Evangile fully, but who has never stopped to be a man. And, therefore, a true Saint. A Saint poet who liked to sing.

Angelo Branduardi

Painting: "San Francesco predica agli uccelli", Giotto
(Superior Basilica of St Francis, Assisi)