The Fratres Divoti or de Observantia were one of the many reformed congregations of the Franciscan Order from which stemmed, from the fourteenth century, several branches of the Franciscan family which all converged in the Franciscan Order of the Friars Minor with the last reform in 1897 by Leo XIII.. Even while Saint Francis was alive there were a number of different stances regarding life as the saint saw it, especially as far as poverty was concerned. These differences gave immediate rise to the creation of the “Conventuals”, keepers of Franciscan memories in friaries and large basilicas, and a so-called “spiritual” branch, who gave a more radical interpretation of the principle of poverty. The Observant movement recorded a significant growth during the fifteenth century, in response to the decadence that the Franciscan Order was experiencing at that time. It was a movement of restoration and reform which did not want to break away from the Order, but bring all friars to the primitive and most rigorous observance of the Rule. It was a return to the original ideas of Saint Francis, in perfect obedience to the lawful superiors: “Regulam simpliciter in primaeva puritate observare”. The founder of the Observance in Italy was the lay friar Paoluccio Trinci, an aristocrat from Foligno. In 1368, with the permission of their superior, he retired with some other friars in . . .