Commentary Par XI 92

Dante suppresses reference (because he knows his reader will supply it?) to the narrative that appears not only in all the early lives of Francis, but which has a role in Giotto's representation of his life in the Upper Church at Assisi.  Pope Innocent III at first was not favorable to Francis's petition and was planning to deny it.  He had a dream, however, in which he saw Francis holding the tottering Church of St. John Lateran on his shoulders, and that won him over.