Little Flowers (Fioretti)

by St Francis of Assisi

This is a collection of legends that provides credible examples of classically autistic behaviour in a follower of St Francis of Assisi. He was called Brother Juniper, and he stood out by his disarming naivety in dealing with the social world. He has no idea that others have different thoughts from his own and that they may be trying to manipulate him. His misreading of others’ actions are so hilarious that it is easy to see why he is always forgiven for his errors. Reading these legends at the time I was writing my book, Autism: Explaining the Enigma in the late 1980s, made me realise that autism was probably always with us and did not just suddenly arise in the middle of the 20th century when the condition was first identified and described by Leo Kanner and Hans Asperger.