Aquinas, anticipating the questions Dante's wonder is generating, resolves two of them. He begins with an extended, luminous life of Francis of Assisi — told by a Dominican, which is one of Dante's structural ironies and theological points: the two great orders that reformed the Church (the Franciscans and the Dominicans) are mirror images, and the best tribute to one founder comes from the other's tradition.
Francis was born in Assisi — "between Tupino and Topino's streams" in the Umbrian valley — and his marriage to Lady Poverty is the central image of the biography. Francis courted poverty as a bride, publicly stripping himself of his father's clothes before the Bishop of Assisi, declaring himself a servant of Christ alone. He gathered followers; the rule they lived by was too hard for the world to accept at first, but Pope Innocent III approved it. The Stigmata were received on Mount Alverna — the five wounds of Christ appearing in Francis's own flesh. He died blessing his brothers and Lady Poverty. The biography has the warmth and compression of a master telling a beloved story.
Then Aquinas turns: Providence sent two princes — Francis and Dominic — to guide the Church back to its calling. Both were necessary. But now, Aquinas laments, the Dominican flock has strayed. The pasture once so rich has grown sparse because the sheep have wandered. Some of the Dominicans of Dante's day have forgotten their founder's austerity and pursue wealth and reputation. The praise of Francis is thus both a tribute and a reproach — a mirror held up to the order that has forgotten its own discipline.