Francesco di Paula, or ST FRANCIS OF PAOLA, founder of the order of the Minims, was born in 1416 at Paula or Paola, a village of Calabria. At the age of thirteen he was the inmate of a Franciscan convent; and at nineteen he retired to a cave where he inflicted on himself every species of self-mortification. The fame of his piety having attracted to his cell several emulators of his austere life, he obtained permission to erect a convent, and the new community received from Pope Sixtus IV. the title of the Hermits of St Francis of Assisi; but the title was changed by Alexander VI. to Minim-Hermits of St Francis of Paola. The founder established numerous communities in Italy, Sicily, France, Spain, and Germany, but the Minims were never settled in Great Britain or Ireland. To the usual conventual vows, Francesco added one of the most rigorous abstinence—flesh, eggs, cheese, and milk being strictly forbidden the entire year, except in illness. Popular report having attributed to Francesco several wonderful cures, Louis XI. of France, being ill, summoned him to his presence. Francesco was received with the highest honour, and attended the king on his death-bed. Charles VIII. and Louis XII. induced him to settle in
France, and built him convents at Plessis-les-Tours and Amboise. Francesco died at Plessis on Good Friday 1507, and was canonised in 1519.