Francis of Assisi

Born Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone, son of a wealthy cloth merchant in Assisi. As a young man he chased glory through war and feasting until illness and a slow conversion broke his old life apart. In the town square, he stripped off his fine clothes and handed them back to his father — choosing radical poverty as a wedding to "Lady Poverty" herself. He founded the Franciscan order, preached to the poor (and, the stories say, to birds and a wolf), composed the Canticle of the Sun in praise of "Brother Sun and Sister Moon," and near the end of his life received the stigmata — the wounds of Christ — on Mount La Verna. He is the patron saint of animals, ecology, and anyone who suspects that what they own is quietly owning them back.