This essay reflects on the possibility of reconstructing a biography of Francis of Assisi: St. Francis was a religious reformer? Moving from a well- known draft by Pierre Bourdieu, L’illusion biographique, the essay analyses the implications of the relationship between the hagiographies of St. Francis, the writings of Francis and the so-called first portrayal of the true man of Assisi, in a small Chapel of the Speco of Subiaco. From the point of view of a work by Erasmus Alber Alcoranus Franciscanorum (first half of the XVI Century), this image highlights the illusion of the ‘true’ Francis. The man of Assisi was not a Christian reformer.