The Itinerarium mentis in Deum, which Bonaventure brought with him from these weeks of solitude, is a first sign of a new intellectual direction. From this book onward, the figure of St. Francis enters ever more into the center of his thought; indeed, it is precisely that Francis who has fittingly been called the “Christ-Image of the Middle Ages.”12 This development can be followed further in the Life of St. Francis (1260–1263),13 in the various ascetical and practical writings which come from the
Page 3