"Come a candelier candelo". Chiara d'Assisi e la Luce del mondo.

Abstract: This article compares the different sources (Legenda Sanctae Clarae, Bulla Canonizationis, Atti del Processo Canonico) on the ‘oracle’ that Ortolana, mother of Saint Clare of Assisi, receives as she prays in a church, anxious for the imminent birth of ea filia. Despite some variations, the sources are homogeneous with each other and coherent with an intertextuality, that evokes the messianic prophecies of the Old Testament and the apostolic function that, despite the weak sex, Clare shares with the other two great ‘apostles mendiants’, St. Francis of Assisi and St. Dominic of Guzmán. The text, however, shows plausible suggestions of the Life of Saint Bridget of Ireland, and perhaps, mediated by these, influences of the Svetonian biography of Augustus.