Chiara Mercuri is an Italian historian whose book on Saint Louis’s acquisition of the crown of thorns won the prestigious prize of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. ...view moreChiara Mercuri is an Italian historian whose book on Saint Louis’s acquisition of the crown of thorns won the prestigious prize of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. She writes for the Italian magazine, Medioevo (Middle Ages), and spent years reconstructing, on the basis of unofficial sources, this life and teaching of Francis of Assisi.view less