Abstract

The objective of this essay is to analyze the sources which inspired Capitini’s thought, starting from the influence that it exerted over anti-fascism in Umbria, especially at existential, pre-political level, the Franciscan experience of the origins and after the experience of Gandhi. Francesco d’Assisi appears to be, from this point of view, the most lasting inspired of Capitini’s thought and action from the twenties to the full maturation of his non-violent thought. Then the essay concentrates on the sources of Capitini’s interpretation of Francesco d’Assisi, finding them out in the thought of Giovanni Gentile, a fundamental but little acknowledged interlocutor of anti-fascism in Umbria