800 years of Francis of Assisi

The provincial exhibition dealt with a topic that attracted worldwide attention in 1982: the 800th anniversary of the birth of Francis of Assisi and the significance of the order that goes back to him in the life, culture and art of the Middle Ages.

The examination of one of the most important personalities of the Christian West, Francis of Assisi, and the Franciscan movement he founded “represents a scientific challenge of the highest order and makes it possible to track down and illustrate the forces in society, the economy and culture that are filled with Franciscan spirituality and have become effective”, is how Harry Kühnel and Hanna Egger, the scientific exhibition directors, described the objectives of this show.

A “major scientific and educational undertaking such as this provincial exhibition” (Governor Siegfried Ludwig) required the involvement of hundreds of institutions and individuals - for example, more than 60 scientists and researchers from Austria and abroad were involved, with loans coming from 14 countries.

The Minorites settled in Stein in 1224, and in 1264 they consecrated their church, which was the venue for the 1982 provincial exhibition. They founded three more monasteries in Lower Austria: Tulln (1230), Hainburg (1240) and Wiener Neustadt (1250).

St. Francis of Assisi triggered a profound change in medieval piety. At the turn of the 12th and 13th centuries, Francis pointed the way to a new understanding of God, in which he wanted to see weeping instead of homage to the majesty of God, tears and sorrow over the fact that “love is not loved” - “following Christ in his poor, evangelical life, surrendering and entrusting oneself to Mary in love, breaking down distances and feeling the immediate closeness of God is St. Francis' own attitude of piety and that of his teaching” (Kühnel/Egger).

Francis turns to God as his brother and must therefore see his fellow man as Christ saw him. Thus his turning to God can only take place through love for the poor, the leper. Kühnel/Egger: “Alongside the active love of God, in self-emptying and service to others, there is the desire for total union with Christ and Mary, which can be fulfilled through meditation, contemplation and pious devotion.”

In the exhibition, the wealth and poverty of the time around 1200 were depicted and the lives of St. Francis and St. Clare were developed from this. The example of St. Elizabeth was used to show the care of the poor and the sick, which the members of the Franciscan order saw as one of their main tasks. The second part of the national exhibition was dedicated to the influence of the Franciscan spirit on the visual arts, while the third part presented everyday Franciscan monastic life in the Middle Ages.

Sound space Krems