Assisi marks 800 years since St Francis's death and remains a symbol of peace and dialogue
Today we honour Saint Francis, symbol of peace and diplomacy. On the 800th anniversary of his death, Euronews revisits his meeting with the sultan of Egypt and what this charismatic figure still has to teach us.
In 2026, 4 October, the day dedicated to Saint Francis, was made a national holiday. In Assisi the celebrations are entering their peak in these very days and the epicentre will be the Upper Basilica. At 23:59 on Saturday 3 October the bells will ring out in celebration, marking the start of the official festivities.
From this year, 4 October has once again become a national holiday to celebrate the universal values of peace, fraternity, solidarity and respect for the environment embodied by Saint Francis of Assisi.
On Sunday, the first national holiday dedicated to the saint, the ceremony will be attended by Italy's president, Sergio Mattarella, and ambassadors from all over the world because, as Euronews is told by Friar Giulio Cesareo, director of the communications office of the Sacred Convent of Assisi, "Francis is not a gift only for Italy but for the world".
But who was Saint Francis and why does his appeal remain so powerful 800 years after his death?
Tradition has handed down to us several different images of Francis, all of which in some way continue to speak to today's world. As Professor Antonio Musarra, a medieval historian at Sapienza University of Rome and a Harvard fellow who has recently published The World According to Francis of Assisi (Il Mulino, 2026) (source in Italian), explains to Euronews:
"Francis has been reread throughout history in completely different ways. Already in his own time, in the 1200s, biographies and hagiographies piled up that portrayed him differently, but the Francis we have today, the one we have inherited, is the one that begins to emerge after the First World War: he is Francis of peace, Francis the diplomat, Francis who tries to reconcile warring factions."
And indeed, when we ask him how relevant the saint still is and what he could teach today's world, the professor has no doubts: it is his modus operandi, his 'style'. "A style we can clearly see in his relationship with the Mediterranean, with other cultures, with the other," the professor adds.
He offers two examples: "The other in one's own home, for instance the leper whose encounter triggers his conversion, but also religious otherness, as when he met the sultan." An encounter that Giotto chose to depict in the cycle on the life of Saint Francis with which, at the end of the 13th century, he frescoed the lower part of the single nave of Assisi's Upper Basilica.
Why the meeting between Francis and Saladin's nephew is so important
The meeting between Saint Francis of Assisi and the Egyptian sultan al-Malik al-Kamil took place during the Fifth Crusade in Damietta, Egypt. It is an encounter from which we can still learn today.
As Father Paolo Nicelli, a theology lecturer at the Catholic University of Milan and an expert on the relationship between Islam and modernity, explains to Euronews: "Damietta is a port, a major commercial hub and therefore of interest to both Christians and Muslims, and so the dispute is not spiritual but clearly of an economic and military nature."
He continues: "On the one hand we have Francis, a profoundly spiritual man; on the other we have a statesman, as is the case in Islam." Saint Francis is a man of faith and leaves the crusaders' camp to cross enemy lines, convinced that he will succeed in converting Saladin's nephew.
The conversion never took place, but Francis was received with respect by the sultan. Hagiographic tradition also tells of the legendary "trial by fire", in which Francis declared himself ready to enter the flames to prove the truth of his faith. The sultan declined the challenge but was struck by the courage of the poor man of Assisi.
This meeting with a representative of Islam based on words rather than weapons would, in the centuries that followed, become a model of peace and interreligious dialogue.
"An example of mercy and forgiveness," Nicelli adds. "A forgiveness that is even more necessary today, especially in a globalised society like ours. In this sense Francis's model is unquestionably countercultural, because it runs exactly against the prevailing values of today: careerism, individualism, selfishness, self-centredness, self-glorification and so on."
And it is perhaps for this reason that, 800 years after his death, his figure is still so widely celebrated and so important today.
