With striking power, Stefano Mancuso unveils St. Francis’s Canticle of the Creatures as a timeless guide for survival in the Anthropocene. 

In 1225, nearly blind and gravely ill, Saint Francis of Assisi composed the Canticle of the Creatures, a poetic hymn celebrating all form of life: Brother Sun, Sister Moon, Brother Wind, Sister Water - and even Sister Death. Eight centuries later, Stefano Mancuso reads it anew: not as a medieval relic, but as the most urgent ecological lesson of our time. Through Francis’s verses, Mancuso reveals the hidden dynamics of our planet. The Sun, radiant and inexhaustible, powers all life, transforming light into the food that sustains us. The Moon steadies the Earth’s axis, silently enabling the evolution of life. Wind and Air, fragile yet essential, carry the breath of every living being. Water, Fire, and Earth weave an invisible balance that cradles our world. In The Song of the Earth, poetic reverence meets scientific insight: from photosynthesis to climate change, from lunar tides to the depletion of our atmosphere. Mancuso’s own memories - wandering among olive groves, learning in convent gardens, witnessing nature’s fragility firsthand - imbue the text with intimacy and immediacy. The lyric simplicity of Saint Francis resonates alongside cutting-edge research, creating a book that is at once homage, manifesto, and invitation. More than a book, this is a guide to seeing, understanding, and caring for the world anew: an essential companion for anyone seeking to live consciously.