In his fairly short life - he lived from 1181 or 1182 to 1226 - Francis of Assisi wrote relatively little, but he taught, preached and lived so influentially, so charismatically, that his voice still speaks to us across the centuries. His Canticle of Brother Sun has been paid little attention by literary critics, despite being one of the first known works of literature in the Italian language. Bringing the skills of a literary historian to the subject, Brian Moloney considers the genesis of the canticle to show how it works as a carefully composed work of art, rather than as a spontaneous effusion of feeling. The book also includes a line by line commentary on the canticle.