A name given to various heretical sects which appeared in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, principally in Italy. The word being frequently a misnomer, a definition is apposite. Considered philologically, Fraticelli is a diminutive derived from the Italian frate (plural frati). Frati was a designation of the members of the mendicant orders founded during the thirteenth century, principally the Franciscans or Friars Minor. The Latin Fraterculus does not occur in the old records which concern the Fraticelli. Etymologically the name Friars Minor (Fratres Minores) is equivalent to the diminutive Fraticellus. The ideal of the founder of the Friars Minor, St. Francis, was that his disciples by evangelical poverty, complete self-denial, and humility, should lead the world back to Christ. The Italian people designated as Fraticelli all the members of religious, particularly mendicant, orders, and especially solitaries, whether these observed a definite rule or regulated their own lives. #Catholic_Encyclopedia