User Reviews

This late Italian silent was recently posted on the Cineteca Del Friuli site. I'm not sure how many such biographies were filmed on the lives of saints, but it's possible that when Roberto Rossellini made his great Francesco Giullare Di Dio almost twenty years later, he had a hazy memory of this work as a template. The episodic scenario packs in a lot of story as it shows the legends this Italian priest, originally from Portugal,is remembered for, including as the title indicates the miracles some of which,like being in Padua and Lisbon at the same time, may seem preposterous. The execution is that of a crude religious pageant, with references to the Moslems of the 13th century as "infidels," definitely not politically correct by today's standards. But the movie is not without a certain charm, such as the scene with Antonio as a boy and the birds, and has a definite curiosity value.