The Custody of the Holy Land is a custodian priory of the Order of Friars Minor in Jerusalem, founded as the Province of the Holy Land in 1217 by Saint Francis of Assisi, who had also founded the Franciscan Order in 1209. In 1342, the Franciscans were declared by two papal bulls as the official custodians of the Holy Places in the name of the Catholic Church.
Coat of arms of the Custody of the Holy Land
Oldest known portrait in existence of Saint Francis of Assisi, who founded the Order of Friars Minor and its Custody of the Holy Land, dating back to his retreat to Subiaco (1223–1224); depicted without the stigmata.
Saint Francis before Sultan Al-Kamil of Egypt, witnessing the trial by fire (wall fresco, Giotto)
Franciscan monks during the procession on the Calvary in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre(2006).
Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone, known as Francis of Assisi, was an Italian mystic, poet and Catholic friar who founded the religious order of the Franciscans. He was inspired to lead a Christian life of poverty as a beggar and itinerant preacher. One of the most venerated figures in Christianity, Francis was canonized by Pope Gregory IX on 16 July 1228. He is commonly portrayed wearing a brown habit with a rope tied around his waist, featuring three knots that symbolize the three Franciscan vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.
A painting of Saint Francis by Philip Fruytiers
The oldest surviving depiction of St. Francis is a fresco near the entrance of the Benedictine abbey of Subiaco, painted between March 1228 and March 1229. He is depicted without the stigmata, but the image is a religious image and not a portrait.
São Francisco das Chagas, painted by Ducarmo Teles.
The house where Francis of Assisi lived when young
