St. Francis of Paola (1416-1507) was a 15th-century founder of a mendicant, or poverty-committed begging order, the Order of Minims. He comes from Calabria, in the very south of Italy. (If you imagine the Italian boot, Calabria is on the part near the toe.)

His parents had been without children for some time after their marriage and invoked St. Francis of Assisi. Eventually, they were gifted with two children, Francis the elder, named after his patron. Later on, as an infant, he suffered from swelling that threatened his loss of sight. Again invoking St. Francis, his parents promised that if he recovered, they would have him spend a year in the “little habit” of St. Francis at some Franciscan monastery. He did. At 13, on admonition of a Franciscan friar, he entered that order and eventually made pilgrimage to the sites of Franciscan sanctity, but then retired to a cave on his father’s estate and lived a quasi-hermetic life of penance.

Eventually others joined him, leading to formation of his order. They were styled the “Minims,” because they sought to be the least of all religious, and lived a severe spirituality. In addition to the usual three vows of chastity, poverty and obedience, the Minims also vowed perpetual abstinence from meat and meat products, such as eggs, butter, cheese and fish. Non-violence and humility were characteristic features of Minim spirituality. Accounts of miracles worked by St. Francis usually focus on animals whose lives were spared by our late medieval vegetarian.

The order eventually came to be established in southern Italy. Its fame spread more widely, eventually to France. The dying French King Louis XI begged for St. Francis to come to his deathbed, which he did, and he remained to be tutor to Louis’s heir, Charles VIII. Minim influence apparently also continued on Charles’ successor, Louis XII. These connections kept Francis in France until his death, on Good Friday 1507. 

The oil painting of St. Francis is either by or in the style of Gaspare Diziani, an 18th-century Baroque/Roccoco artist from the Veneto region of northeast Italy. It depicts several constant features of iconography associated with St. Francis, most especially the word “Caritas” (charity) in a sunburst, which was his motto. Francis is often depicted with a staff or rod, alluding both to his shepherding his community and miracles associated with sheep. His early cave dwelling is in the background. 

The Minims were a small order, and artists often blend it into the larger Franciscan family, from which St. Francis of Paola drew so much inspiration. However, the habit he prescribed was black, not the Franciscan brown with a black belt. As the life of St. Francis of Paola was marked by mystical experiences and visions, the Diziani artist depicts one such angelic vision here.

According to one source whose claim I could not confirm, though he founded a religious order, St. Francis of Paola was not ordained a priest.