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CONCLUSION Francis of Assisi and Iacopone da Todi are mystics and poets.Their mysticism permeates their lives and works and infuses an indelible imprint on their poetic achievements. Despite their opposing theological perspectives , their mysticism clearly displays a Franciscan matrix.The radical approach to religion which they share finds a justification in their historical roles at the beginning of the Franciscan Order, when the new mendicant concepts were still being forged and formulated. Both identify poverty as a primary asset, the crucial virtue that will open the way to ecstatic union. In the poetry of both, harmony features as a pivotal concept and coincides with a personal reappropriation of the atmosphere in Earthly Paradise. The mythical stage of humanity, when nudity and silence characterized the lives of the first human beings, represents the goal of their theological (and anthropological) principles.From the early stages of humanity in Earthly Paradise the two Franciscan poets also borrow the concept of “two in one flesh” as a metaphor for the indelible love union between Anima and Christ.The unification of the two separate genders forges Francis ’s foundation of the two independent but complementary Orders, the Franciscans and the Poor Clares,and shapes the topos of matrimonial consummation in Iacopone’s poetry. The two mystics are aware that reaching back to the harmonious relationship of human beings with God is a theological operation, a reconstruction and a re-creation of an original status;the knowledge that human beings acquired after eating the“forbidden fruit”accompanies their attempt to reestablish that lost dimension and, in a sense, makes that lost status impossible to accomplish fully.They can revisit Earthly Paradise only through the experience of mystical union, thanks to Christian redemption , of which the crucifixion is the apex and the resolution.The nudity and silence toward which they strive appears as the common denominator of Earthly Paradise and the cross. Francis and Iacopone imitate at once the naked and silent Christ on the cross and Adam and Eve before the Fall.They try to reach the purity and innocence of the mythical, unaware human beings in Earthly Paradise,by modeling their lives on the violently stripped and passively speechless crucified man.Two crucial moments of the biblical account, the Book of Genesis and the Passion, come together in the single icon of nudity and silence; from beginning to new beginning, the elimination of two most human qualities, clothes and speech, paradoxically produces a more spiritual human entity. These ideas can be extrapolated from the hagiographic accounts of their lives as well as from their poetic works.But rhetoric is also an essential portion of the mysticism of both. Francis and Iacopone express new concepts, but they also display a new style and a new rhetoric that facilitate the acquisition of an original perception of divinity.Poverty and simplicity led them to consider reality from different angles and to view Christianity in a new light.They surpass the complexity of theological conceptualizations in order to recover some core concepts of Christianity .This process has purification as its final goal.While it eliminates all encumbering elements that may obscure the spirit, the purifying process sometimes brings on socially reprehensible behavior or exposes the uncouth, almost animalistic, side of humanity. In various episodes narrated by their hagiographers,Francis and Iacopone utilize histrionic,clownish techniques or act like animals.A fitting example is offered byThomas of Celano,who reports that,during the preparation of the first manger scene,Francis mimicked the sound of a sheep. He began repeating the word “Bethlehem” aloud,and while he pronounced the name of Christ’s birthplace,his enunciation acquired the connotation of a bleating lamb.As he was “burning with . . . the sweetness of the word,” the pronunciation of Bethlehem revealed to him a novel connection with the image of Christ-the-Lamb.1 Christ’s sacrificial destiny is already inscribed in the name of his birthplace .The bleating of its phonetics discloses the prophecy of the Lamb of God, while the semantics of Bethlehem, literally “the house of bread,” likewise bears a highly symbolic significance as the birthplace of Christ, who will be identified with“the bread of life”in the Eucharist.The bleating sound emanating from Christ’s birthplace marks the conjunction of the manger scene evoking his birth with the crucifixion that concludes his life. But the inarticulate ovine sound also elicits innocence and purity as two of the main symbolic referents of the lamb, a meek and submissive creature...

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