The creation of the dedicated statue is definitively approved in San Francesco in the square of the same name in Salerno. The municipal resolution is n.214 and it is written: «……The preventive expense for the realization of the work is 18,000,000 lire, and includes the bronze statue of the Saint, approximately meters high. 3.20 and 12 blocks of statuary travertine measuring mt. 1.20 high, carved with 12 panels depicting scenes from the Song of the Creatures. An artistic fountain will be built at the base of the monument….»
Thus ends a process that began in 1957 when the daily newspaper Roma launched a sort of local press campaign to create a subscriptionat the will of the local authorities and the church, primarily the Provincial Curia of the Capuchin Friars Minor, so that a monument dedicated to the poor saint can be created. The initiative is accompanied by a first project presented by the sculptor Michele GuerriYeswhere we see the figure of the saint with his arms pointing upwards and a pilgrim approaching a water source, both bronze figures.
On 3 July 1964, with the minutes of municipal resolution no. 271, the authorization for the installation of a monument to San Francesco was approved, and in a further resolution no. 706 of 18 July 1964, the authorization for the occupation was granted of public land. The October 4, 1972the day on which Saint Francis of Assisi, patron saint of Italy since 1939, is celebrated, the fountain-monument is inaugurated in the presence of the Archbishop Monsignor Gaetano Pollioof the mayor Gaspare Russoof the president of the Province Carbon dioxide and all local authorities. Thousands of people take part in the inauguration and on the notes of Song of the Creatures, the bronze statue of the Saint was discovered, all documented by the newspapers of the time. Over the last twenty years the square has been renovated, while the fountain has recently been restored and returned to its splendor after a period of abandonment.
