Far from being excited or apologetic because he'd been gone, Pietro was furious because she'd had his new son baptized Giovanni after John the Baptist. The last thing Pietro wanted in his son was a man of God ! 

He wanted a man of business, a cloth merchant like he was, and he especially wanted a son who would reflect his infatuation with France. So he renamed his son Francesco, which is the equivalent of calling him Frenchman.

Francis enjoyed a very rich easy life and he became the leader of a crowd of young people who spent their nights in wild parties. 

Francis wanted to be a noble, a knight. Battle was the best place to win the glory and prestige he longed for. He got his first chance when Assisi declared war on Perugia. 

Francis was taken prisoner, chained in a dark dungeon and ransomed after a year: he was taken seriously ill. 

Finally he recovered from his illness and a call for knights gave him another chance, but Francis never got farther than Spoleto. There, he had a dream in which God told him to return home.

Francis' conversion did not happen over night. He started to spend more time in prayer. One day, Francis came face to face with a leper. He jumped down from his horse and kissed the hand of the leper. 

Francis took fabric from his father's shop and sold it to get money to repair that church. Pietro dragged him before the bishop, at San Rufino's church (just beside Clare's home), and demanded that Francis return the money and renounce all rights as his heir. 

The bishop was very kind to Francis; he told him to return the money and said God would provide. That was all Francis needed to hear.

He begged for stones and rebuilt the San Damiano church with his own hands, then he repaired the little Porziuncola, which became his dearest church.

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Slowly companions came to Francis: Bernard of Quintavalle,Peter  of Cattaneo, Giles, Philip "the Long" and other people who wanted to follow his example.

The friars' first home was the "Hut of Rivotorto", in the countryside near Assisi.

A famous story involves a wolf that had been eating human beings in Gubbio. Francis talked the wolf into never killing again. The wolf became a pet of the town and he always had plenty to eat.

Between 1209 and 1210, Francis wrote down a brief Rule, then he went with his companions to Rome to see Pope Innocent III, because he wanted his approval. The Pope had a dream that this tiny man in rags held up the tilting Lateran basilica, so he orally approved the Rule and life of the Order of Friars Minor.

In 1211 Clare of Assisi left her noble and rich family to follow Francis' example.

A Franciscan, contemplative, enclosed order, also known as the "Poor Ladies". The nuns were named "Poor Clares" after Clare's death.

The "Eremo Le Celle" of Cortona, in region Tuscany, was founded by Francis in 1211, and it was the first Convent founded by him,  

It's possible to visit his cell and his companions' oratory. 
In 1213, the Count Orlando di Chiusi donated the Mount "La Verna" (in region Tuscany) to Francis.

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In 1224, on the Mount "La Verna" he received the stigmata, the marks of the nails and the lance wound that Christ suffered, in his own body.

That was when he wrote his beautiful Canticle of the Sun that expresses his brotherhood with creation in praising God.

Francis never recovered from this illness. On the evening of 3rd October, 1226, he died near the Porziuncola.

The procession which accompanied his remains from the Porziuncola to the town stopped on the way at San Damiano in order that Clare and her daughters might venerate the sacred stigmata now visible to all.
The saint had, in his humility, expressed a wish to be buried on the Colle d'Inferno, a despised hill where criminals were executed.  His body was placed provisionally in the church of St. George (now within the enclosure of the monastery of St. Clare). Many miracles are recorded to have taken place at his tomb.

Francis was canonized at St. George's by Gregory IX, 16th July, 1228.  His liturgical commemoration is on 4th October.

Gregory IX laid the first stone of the great double church of St. Francis  and  on 25th May, 1230, Francis's remains were secretly transferred by Brother Elias and buried far down under the high altar in the lower church. Here, after lying hidden for six centuries, Francis's coffin was found, 12th December, 1818, as a result of a toilsome search lasting fifty-two nights.

His habit is in a shrine in the lower church.  The crypt  was built in 1824 and totally renovated in 1932.

The saint's remains are above the altar in the stone box with the iron ties. Four of his early companions are buried in the corners of the room: Leo, Angelo, Masseo, Rufinus.   

Opposite the altar, between the two flights of stairs, notice the remains of Francis' great friend  Jacopa de' Settesoli, in an urn behind a black metal grill.