However this may be, St.Francis found in Gioacchino's thought many of the elements which, unconsciously to himself, were to become the foundation of his institute.
The noble disdain which he shows for all men of learning, and which he sought to inculcate upon his Order, was for Gioacchino one of the characteristics of the new era.

"The truth which remains hidden to the wise," he says, "is revealed to babes; dialectics closes that which is open, obscures that which is clear; it is the mother of useless talk, of rivalries and blasphemy.

Learning does not edify, and it may destroy, as is proved by the scribes of the Church, swollen with pride and arrogance, who by dint of reasoning fall into heresy."[40] We have seen that the return to evangelical simplicity had become a necessity; all the heretical sects were on this point in accord with pious Catholics, but no one spoke in a manner so Franciscan as Gioacchino di Fiore.

Not only did he make voluntary poverty one of the characteristics of the age of lilies, but he speaks of it in his pages with so profound, so living an emotion, that St.Francis could do little more than repeat his words.

The ideal monk whom he describes,[41] whose only property is a lyre, is a true Franciscan before the letter, him of whom the _Poverello_ of Assisi always dreamed.
The feeling for nature also bursts forth in him with incomparable vigor.
One day he was preaching in a chapel which was plunged in almost total darkness, the sky being quite overcast with clouds.