Francis of Paola, OM, was an Italian Catholic friar and the founder of the Order of Minims. Unlike the majority of founders of men's religious orders, and like his patron saint Francis of Assisi, he was never ordained a priest.

The Minims, officially known as the Order of Minims, and known in German-speaking countries as the Paulaner Order, are a Roman Catholic religious order of friars founded by Francis of Paola in fifteenth-century Italy. The order soon spread to France, Germany and Spain, and continues to exist today.