The body of Saint Francis of Assisi will be displayed for public veneration between February 22nd and March 22nd, 2026. The display was declared by Brother Marco Moroni, custodian of the Sacro Convento, to a crowd gathered on the loggia of the Basilica of Saint Francis on 4 Oct. 2025, marking the eighth centenary of his death. The Daily Beast said the remains normally lie in a nitrogen-filled glass urn beneath the basilica, making the coming exposition the first occasion on which pilgrims may approach them directly.
The body will be transferred from its crypt to the foot of the papal altar in the lower church, and organizers expect thousands of visitors. “Seeing the body of Saint Francis is not contemplating a symbol of the past, but the living testimony of a life dedicated to the Gospel,” said the Franciscan friars in a statement.
After Francis died on October 3rd 1226, his brothers hid the corpse to prevent desecration, and it remained concealed until an 1818 excavation ordered by Pope Pius VII revealed an intact skeleton wrapped in a coarse wool habit. Scientific studies, most recently in 2015, confirmed the authenticity and sound preservation of the long bones, ribs, and a portion of the skull.
The initiative was announced on the saint’s feast day, the same date Italy will reinstate a national holiday beginning in 2026. “Restoring the feast day is a choice of identity, an act of love for Italy and its people,” said Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. Moroni added that the celebration would invite “more sober lifestyles and more fraternal relationships.”
Admission to the exposition will be free, though online reservations will be required at sanfrancescovive.org starting Oct 4th 2025. Routes accessible to visitors with disabilities and guidelines for sustainable spiritual tourism are planned. Two international Masses will be celebrated daily in the upper church at 11 a.m. and 5 p.m., complemented by community prayer, night vigils, guided visits in multiple languages, and a short liturgical rite concluding each pilgrimage, after which visitors will receive a small token.
Fra Giulio Cesareo called the event “a powerful message for society,” urging reflection on evangelical poverty and fraternity amid current crises. The exhibition coincides with Lent and was authorized through the Secretariat of State by Pope Leo XIV. Vatican News described the centenary as “a time of remembrance and renewal, a seed sown in the earth that continues to bear fruits of peace, faith, and love.”
Technicians will monitor humidity, temperature, and light to safeguard the relic, while volunteers trained by local authorities will direct visitor flow. The Vatican projected a large influx of pilgrims, and businesses in Umbria have begun preparations.
Organizers emphasized that no one is obliged to venerate the relic but invited believers and curious onlookers alike to witness a chapter of history unseen for eight centuries.
Francis, born Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone in Assisi between 1181 and 1182 to a wealthy cloth merchant, traded aspirations of knighthood for a life of itinerant preaching and poverty after illness, captivity, and visions in the ruined chapel of San Damiano. He founded the Order of Friars Minor in 1209, received the stigmata at La Verna in 1224, and was canonized in 1228 by Pope Gregory IX. Today he is patron of animals, ecology, and the Italian nation, remembered for the Canticle of the Creatures, which exalts Brother Sun and Sister Moon.
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