CESARIO of SPIRA. - Francesco, a disciple of St. Francis of Assisi, was born in Speyer (Germany) in the second half of the 12th century and died in Assisi (?) during the generalship of Brother Elias (1232-39). He studied theology in Paris and was a subdeacon and preacher when he went to Syria with the Crusaders. There, Brother Elias, the first provincial minister of that province (1217-20), received him into the Order. When St. Francis also came there, Caesar joined him and returned to Italy in 1220, where, at the Saint’s wish, he enriched the Second Rule with passages from Holy Scripture.
In 1221 the Saint appointed him head of the Franciscan mission in Germany, making him the first provincial minister there. He returned to Assisi in 1223 and was present at the death of the Saint (1226). Under the generalship of Brother Elias, as Angelo Clareno (q.v.) relates around 1323, Caesar, zealous for the purity of the Rule, is said to have been imprisoned and to have died from ill-treatment by a lay brother who was his jailer. Since the source is late and suspect, however, full reliance cannot be placed on this account.