rceived the fragmentary state of
the work of the Three Companions. The prologue alone might have
suggested this idea. Why should it take three to write a few pages? Why
this solemn enumeration of Brothers whose testimony and collaboration
are asked for? There would be a surprising disproportion between the
effort and the result.

More than all, the authors say that they shall not stop at relating the
miracles, but they desire above all to exhibit the ideas of Francis and
his life with the Brothers, but we search in vain for any account of
miracles in what we now have.[39]

An Italian translation of this legend, published by Father Stanislaus
Melchiorri,[40] has suddenly given me an indirect confirmation of this
point of view. This monk is only its publisher, and has simply been able
to discover that in 1577 it was taken from a very ancient manuscript by
a certain Muzio Achillei di San Severino.[41]

This Italian translation contained only the last chapters of the legend,
those which tell of the death, the stigmata, and the translation of the
remains.[42] It was, then, made at a time when the suppressed portion
had not been replaced by a short summary of the other legends.

From all this two conclusions emerge for the critics: 1. This final
summary has not the same authority as the rest of the work, since the
time when it was added is unknown. 2. Fragments of a legend by Brother
Leo or by the Three Companions scattered through later compilations may
be perfectly authentic.

In its present condition this legend of the Three Companions is the
finest piece of Franciscan literature, and one of the most delightful
productions of the Middle Ages. There is something indescribably sweet,
confiding, chaste, in these pages, an energy of virile youth which the
Fioretti suggest but never attain to. At more than six hundred years of
distance the purest dream that ever thrilled the Christian Church seems
to live again.

These friars of Greccio, who, scattered over the mountain, under the
shade of the olive-trees, passed their days in singing the Hymn of the
Sun, are the true models of the primitive Umbrian Masters. They are all
alike; they are awkwardly posed; everything in and around them sins
against the most elementary rules of art, and yet their memory pursues
you, and when you have long forgotten the works of impeccable modern
artists you recall without effort these creations of those unknown
painters; for love calls for l