For years, Franciscan historians suspected that another life of St. Francis must have been produced sometime between Thomas of Celano’s first and second account, but it was largely believed to have been lost or destroyed throughout the ages. Dalarun’s groundbreaking discovery of Thomas of Celano’s Life of Our Blessed Father Francis (The Rediscovered Life) confirms that not only was such a text in fact produced, but it is has been sitting in the Vatican library waiting to be discovered all of these years. To recall a Franciscan historical discovery of such magnitude, one would have to go back to 1922 when The Assisi Compilation first came to light. In their translation of this text, Dalarun and Johnson provide a lucid account of The Rediscovered Life that is accessible for readers of various educational backgrounds and levels of familiarity with the Franciscan heritage to comprehend. The “life” presented in this text, even if it was found some eight hundred years after it was written, has not lost any of its fascination as it offers us a surprisingly contemporary face of the Poverello of Assisi.The Rediscovered Life is truly one of the most important historical discoveries of the twenty-first century, and its impact on both Franciscan and medieval historical scholarship will be clearly felt throughout the years to come.
