Acclaimed by Four Centuries: History of the Cause
The Contribution of Historians
At about the same time that Bishop Verot's gestures were manifesting his recognition of the work and the sacrifice of the early missionaries in the territory of old La Florida, scientific historians were undertaking the difficult work of unearthing exact details about the deaths of these friars.
In the preceding chapter of this Report we have already noted the work of Father Panfilo da Magliano and John Gilmary Shea in bringing to light hitherto unknown details of the 1597 slayings. Magliano's clarifying of the identity of the victims, and Shea's bolstering of the new information on the basis of unassailable documentation, mark a turning point in the history of the move to bring to the altars the Martyrs of 1597.
”Rule of l221," ch. 16:10-11, in The Writings of Saint Francis, trans. Ignatius Brady (Assisi: Edizioni Porziuncola, 1983) 77. Henceforth, Brady.
St. Bonaventure, Major Life of St. Francis, chap. 12: I, trans. Benen Fahy in Marion A. Habig (ed.), St. Francis of Assisi: Writings and Early Biographies: English Omnibus of the Sources for the Life of St. Francis, 4lh rev. ed. (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1983), 721. Cited henceforth as Omnibus.
Ibid., chap. 3:1, pp. 646-47.
Thomas of Celano, The First Life of St. Francis, chap. JO: 29, trans. Placid Hermann in Omnibus, 247.
Ibid., chap. I 5, p. 258.
Bonaventure, Major Life, chap. 9:5, in Omnibus, 701.
St. Francis, "Letter Addressed to the Whole Order," in Brady, 121.
