Valdo di Lione e Francesco d'Assisi. Due stili, un Vangelo

Why was Waldo condemned as a heretic, while Francis became a saint? The historian Francesca Tasca, a professor in Bergamo, presents two lives that brush against each other over time, but take incompatible paths. Waldo, a wealthy citizen of Lyon, sells everything, chooses radical poverty and sets up a network of lay preachers who speak to ordinary people in squares, in homes, outside the control of the clergy. Francis of Assisi also chooses poverty and itinerancy, but he hands them over to the Church: obedience, recognition, Rule. The line that separates "holiness" from "heresy" also passes through the power to decide who can speak, who can preach, who can exist.