Saint Francis (1182-1226) Francesco was born in Assisi in the winter of 1182 to one of the city’s wealthiest families. His childhood passed peacefully. He was able to study Latin, the vernacular, the Provençal, and music; his notes, together with his poems, were always appreciated in the city’s festivals.
His father, a spice and cloth merchant, eager to involve him in the family business, educated him for this art. But the episode that began to transform Francesco’s life happened to him at the age of twenty, when captured while participating in the war between Assisi and Perugia.
The imprisonment and hardships shaped his soul, and the more his body weakened, the more a sense of charity and fairness towards others began to take over. The spiritual inheritance that the “friar” left to illuminate the path of many is enormous.
Legend asserts that Jacopa de’ Settesoli, a Roman noblewoman, born in the Eternal City in 1190 in the bosom of an illustrious family residing in Trastevere. She had married a rich man from Rome, a certain Graziano Frangipane, and had two children. She widowed early at the age of 27 and became the manager of her husband’s many properties, including Marino’s town. Two years later, in 1219, St. Francis arrived in Rome to preach, and Donna Jacopa met him, becoming from that moment his faithful follower and his excellent guide on the streets of Rome. Since then, Jacopa de’ Settesoli became the most valid collaborator of the nascent Franciscan movement in the city of the Popes and also of the Poor Clares.
She obtained from the Benedictines of San Cosimato in Trastevere the sale of San Biagio’s hospital, which became the Minors’ first Roman place. Jacopa de’ Settesoli was so active and resolute that Francesco affectionately called her Frata Jacopa. Their friendship lasted until the saint’s death, which took place on the night between 3 and 4 October 1226.
During his first stay in Rome, Francis tasted what would become his perennial “sin of gluttony”: individual “good and fragrant” biscuits, the saint, said, which Jacopa de’ Settesoli herself prepared and offered him one day at his house.
A typical sweet biscuit prepared during the harvest period, with bread dough, honey, almonds, and grape must, combined with several season’s spices. Perhaps for the latter ingredient (grape must), called “mostaccioli” Still, already in ancient Rome, similar biscuits were known with the name of “mortarioli “based on honey and almonds pounded in a mortar to a coarse flour.
Image attribution Taste Atlas
In any case, whatever the origin of the term, that mostaccioli by Frata Jacopa de’ Settesoli were liked so much to St. Francis that he desired them even on his deathbed! When Francesco felt his last hour approaching, he dictated a letter to the dear friend Frata Jacopa to inform her of his imminent death, asking her to join him at the Porziuncola, bringing him a robe for the burial and candles for the funeral and sweets.
The letter read:
“To Donna Jacopa, servant of the Highest, Brother Francis, the poor man of Christ, wishes health through the Lord and the communion in the Holy Spirit. Please know that the blessed Lord has given me the grace to reveal that the end of my life is now imminent.
Therefore, if you want to find me still alive, hurry up and come as soon as you receive this letter to the basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli. Because if you arrive later on Saturday, you won’t be able to see me alive. And bring with you an ashy-colored cloth to wrap my body and the burial candles. Please also bring me those sweets you used to give me when I was sick in Rome”. Those sweets were indeed the mostaccioli.
Note: Making Mostaccioli (Mustacciuoli) is remarkably effortless. I will offer a tested recipe in the future. Meanwhile, if you happen to travel to Naples Italy, seek for Pasticceria Sirica Via Francesco Cappiello nº 55 (Parco Pia) – San Giorgio a Cremano – 80046 Napoli Tel. 081.255.16.72 . Personal favorite.
