Little Flowers of St. Francis

The anonymous Italian text, almost certainly by a Tuscan author, is a version of the Latin Actus beati Francisci et sociorum eius, of which the earliest extant manuscript is one of 1390 AD.

The main body of the collection was translated into Italian by an unknown fourteenth-century friar from a larger Latin work, the Actus B. Francisci et Sociorum Ejus, attributed to Ugolino Brunforte.

The first half of the collection reflects traditions that go back to the early days of the order; the other is believed to be substantially the work of Ugolino da Monte Giorgio of the noble family of Brunforte.

He refused entrance to his order by married men (and the women from admission to the Poor Clares) who sought to follow the Franciscan way, because families should not suffer.

The text was the inspiration for Roberto Rossellini's 1950 film Francesco, giullare di Dio (Francis, God's Jester), which was co-written by Federico Fellini.

In Lore Segal's short story "Other People's Houses: A Liberal Education" (The New Yorker, February 24, 1961), the narrator's brother and his friend Dolf give the book as a gift to each other.