Note 281 — BOOK VIII[239]

Giovanni Francesco Bernardone (1182-1226), canonized by Pope Gregory IX., in 1228, as St. Francis of Assisi, founded the Order of the Franciscans, or Mendicant Friars, in 1208: their rule was confirmed by Pope Honorius III. in 1223. St. Francis visited the Holy Land in 1219. In 1224, two years before his death, he received the Stigmata, on the heights of Monte La Verna, on the morning of the 14th of September, the Feast of the Exaltation of Holy Cross.—T.