Friday, October 2, 2026 | 5:00 PM
The Commonwealth Club of California
Taube Family Auditorium
110 The Embarcadero, San Francisco, CA 94105
Enter the code HWEXPLORE at checkout to receive a special discount on your tickets!
San Francisco has been connected to Francis of Assisi for over 250 years, when Spanish explorers gave the name San Francisco Bay to the waters east of the Golden Gate. That connection intensified 180 years ago when the town of 600 called Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco.
Join Humanities West and the Italian Cultural Institute on the 800th anniversary of his death to find the real Francis of Assisi, because once you have a fuller grasp of his personality, it will not be surprising at all that San Francisco is the city whose citizens inspired tens of thousands to wear flowers in their hair, and aspired (even though they failed) to create a Summer of Love.
SPEAKERS
- Sam Dennison
Long-time Faithful Fool; Dean Emeritus, Institute of Street Level Learning; Editor-in-Chief, Will to Print Press - Davide Rondoni
Poet and literary translator; President of the National Committee for the Celebrations of the 800th Anniversary of Saint Francis’s Death; author of The Wound, The Joy - Augustine Thompson, O.P.
Praeses, Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, Toronto; Professor, Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology, Berkeley; author of Francis of Assisi: A New Biography, winner of the 2013 Premio Ennio Flaiano for Italian Studies - George Hammond (Moderator)
Author of Conversations with Socrates