They simply show that the imaginations of those who surrounded him were extraordinarily overheated; the least incidents immediately took on a miraculous coloring.[13] The documents do not say how it came about that he decided to go to Sienna.

It appears that there was in that city a physician of great fame as an oculist.

The treatment he prescribed was no more successful than that of the others; but with the return of spring Francis made a new effort to return to active life.

We find him describing the ideal Franciscan monastery,[14] and another day explaining a passage in the Bible to a Dominican.
Did the latter, a doctor in theology, desire to bring the rival Order into ridicule by showing its founder incapable of explaining a somewhat difficult verse?
It appears extremely likely.

"My good father," he said, "how do you understand this saying of the prophet Ezekiel, 'If thou dost not warn the wicked of his wickedness, I will require his soul of thee ?' I am acquainted with many men whom I know to be in a state of mortal sin, and yet I am not always reproaching them for their vices.