"Vera forma de Christo”. Il teatro di Francesco (XIII-XV sec.)

[Autom. eng. transl.] Simplicity in Francis was really a way of being and a choice of life in living flesh that involved turning one's back on worldly values and returning to the path that leads to the constitutive image, that of the God-Man, naked and on the cross, to which they resemble (conversion and conformation). His being, living and becoming a de Christo form was the authentic cultural earthquake on which the change in modes of representation was also based. To explain the main elements of this change the essay copies a short journey through three intertwined examples. The first concerns the image of Francis 'configured to Christ' which was drawn in the most ancient confraternity lectures that we have received. The perfect conformity of the Saint to the Crucifix is read as the result of a process of imitation of Jesus in humility, poverty, nakedness and culminating love in sharing his wounds and clearly expresses the idea of following that after the founder had been elaborated and preached by the Order. The second example is the dramaturgical device that orders the composition of the Passionist texts of the Franciscan brand. The 'doing as necessary' to achieve mimetic identification involves the dramatic displacement of representation: the story is told from within the scene, giving rise to the feeling of presence and first-person involvement that are typical of experiential and emotional participation. Finally, the third example is the story of Greccio's Christmas celebration. The proposal of Francis marks the passage from mental theater to concrete dramatic action: the actio embodies the story, here and now, the word becomes a gesture and the vision of the heart unites with that of the eyes of the body.