Assisi and San Francesco

For my mental health I need to get out of the city once a month or so and get some fresh air. Running in the parks here is helpful, but sometimes real woods are necessary. I had read about the trail of San Francesco (St. Francis) and the woods around Assisi where he spent much of his time and thought it would be a perfect destination for this month's escape.

But before I get into my trip there, a little back story on San Francesco. Born in 1181 and baptized Giovanni di Bernardone, in honor of St. John the Baptist. His father, a rich cloth merchant who spent much of his time in France and was quite the francophile, quickly took to calling him Francesco. Young Francesco grew up in the lap of luxury, engaging frequently in large feasts and sporting events. However a few things happened during his young adulthood that showed some insight into his future.

The first, known as the "story of beggar" occurred when Francesco was selling his father's cloth and a beggar came to him asking for alms. He, at first, ignored him, but later left all his father's wares behind and chased after the beggar, giving him everything he had in his pockets. For this act of kindness he was laughed at by his friends and scolded by his father.

When he was 20 years old he went to fight against Perugia and was captured and held in prison for a year, where it is thought he really began to think more about his luxurious ways. Nonetheless on his return home he fell back into his carefree ways. Until he was struck with a mysterious illness that lasted for quite some time and led to an even stronger religious awakening. After he recovered he went off to fight again, this time in Puglia, but returned suddenly following a strange vision.

Upon this return he changed his ways greatly, avoided his old friends and their indulgent feasts, spent his time in the woods or helping lepers in the hospital. His friends, curious about where he had disappeared to, asked if he was planning on getting married. Francesco's response was "yes, to a fairer bride than you have ever seen", which referred to his "lady poverty".

His spiritual transformation was complete when he was praying in the small church of San Damiano, just outside Assisi, and the icon of the Crucified Christ leaned down to him and told him to repair the church because it was obviously falling to ruins. Francesco took this literally and thought he was supposed to fix the church where he was currently praying. In order to do so he starting selling off his father's cloth to pay for supplies. His father did not take too kindly to this and brought his son in front of the town bishop, at which point Francesco renounced his patrimony and resigned to life as a beggar.

He spent his time repairing churches in the countryside surrounding Assisi, in particular the Porziuncola, a small chapel, now surrounded by the much larger baroque church of Santa Maria degli Angeli. After two years of rebuilding churches and living largely as a hermit in the countryside, Francesco heard a sermon that changed his life even more. The sermon was from the Gospel of Matthew in which Christ told his followers that the kingdom of heaven was upon them and to go forward with no money in their pockets, nor shoes on their feet nor staff in hand. Francesco took this to heart and started preaching repentance in the hills of Umbria.

In 1209 Francesco went to Rome in hopes of founding his own order. He met with Pope Innocent III who agreed to informally recognize the group until the grew in number, which they eventually did and were recognized in full. In the later years Francesco traveled the Mediterranean reaching Spain, Morocco and finally Egypt, where he was allowed through the lines of the crusaders to speak with sultan Melek-el-Kamel. He failed in converting the sultan but apparently had such an effect that the sultan asked him to pray to for his soul.

Francesco was also well known for his rapport with animals. In art he is regularly depicted with birds resting on his arms and head. One particularly entertaining story involves the wolf of Gubbio. Gubbio is a small town in Umbria north of Perugia. There was a time when Francesco was living there and a wolf was terrorizing the town. It began when livestock started to disappear but quickly the wolf moved on to human prey. It came to a point that the wolf would linger just outside the town gates and devour anyone who left. Weapons were useless against him and any who tried to fight him met a bitter end.

Francesco took it upon himself, against the urgings of the town, to go talk to the wolf. He left the town with a small group of his followers. When he reached the wolf's lair his followers stayed back as far as possible, but just close enough that they could see the action. The wolf rushed at Francesco with teeth bared. Calmly, the saint made the sign of the cross with his hand and the wolf stopped his attack and walked slowly towards him and sat down at his feet. Francesco proceeded to speak to the wolf and they reached an agreement that the wolf would leave the town alone as long as the citizens would agree to feed him.

This story, among others, were written down in 1390 AD in a manuscript called the Fioretti di San Francesco (Little Flowers of St. Francis). The author is unknown but likely Tuscan. Written almost 200 years after his death the accounts are not viewed as historically accurate but, nevertheless, shed light on the early rise of the Franciscan order.

Enough for background, now to my time in Assisi.

I went with Melissa and her friend Fabiana, who studied in Perugia and spent a good amount of time in Assisi, so she was acting as our guide. Just around the back of the train station is the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli (which I mentioned earlier) where we stopped briefly while waiting for the bus that runs every half hour to the center of town about 2 miles up hill from the station. As far as baroque churches go I was unimpressed, however seeing the original chapel sitting under the crossing, dwarfed by the massive space around it, set up an interesting contrast that would recur throughout the day, the simple life of poverty that Francesco preached, and the elaborate edifices that have been erected in his honor that do not follow that line at all.

After we got the bus up to town we stopped for a quick lunch. Fabiana and I each had strongozzi al tartufo. A long, thin, white pasta made with only flour instead of the normal durum wheat. It was quite tasty. Melissa had a pappardelle al ragu, wide flat fresh pasta with meat sauce that was also good, could have used a little more sauce. After that we split some sausages grilled over an open fire, they were phenomenal. You really can't beat the smokey flavor wood gives to grilled meat.

After lunch we set out for the hermitage where San Francesco spent much of his time while he was in Assisi. It sits up in the hills about four kilometers from the city. Melissa and I were all set to walk, but Fabiana was having little of that so the first car that passed she flagged down and asked for a lift up. It was a station wagon with a family of four, two children probably three and four years old, and things were a bit cramped but they were happy to give us a lift to the top. It was probably a good call because by that point it was already 1:30 and we still had the whole town to see.

We walked into the gate that marked the entrance to the hermitage and the first thing I noticed where the trees. There was an old stone wall on the left side of the path, almost like a retaining wall, what was broken in many place by trees that had grown right through it. Bricks entirely encased by centuries old roots, tree trunks that were as much stone as wood.

The buildings in the hermitage itself were very cramped quarters with doors that my shoulders barely fit through and looked like they were built for eight-year-olds. The refectory still has the original wood benches and tables were San Francesco and his followers ate their simple meals.






After winding through the buildings you come out on a path that leads off into the woods. A few minutes down the path (pictured below) you come to the altar of San Francesco, where he supposedly preached regularly. It is a simple, tranquil place. There is a chair carved out of a single large tree trunk, with a cross hanging from the tree behind it, looking out on four rows of wood benches. These are not original, but I imagine are very similar to how they would have looked. The path continues past the altar running along the hillside or you can follow another down into the valley below. Unfortunately we were a little short of time so we didn't explore the paths all the way out, but I would certainly return to do so. Peering into the woods up the steep slope you almost expected to see the barefoot monk in his coarse robes in discussion with a squirrel.



We came back out of the woods and walked down the hill into town. There were a good number of people making the ascent up to the hermitage, but one thing was very striking among those making the trek. Almost none of them were Italian. We passed Americans, English, Germans, French but only one Italian. The only logical answer I could come up for this was all the Italians were driving up. Typical, avoiding any discomfort.

The buildings of Assisi, like much of Umbria, are made of pink limestone from Monte Subasio, one of the more quarried of the Apennine mountains. The rosy pink color gives the stone a very soft look and offers architects the chance to juxtapose colored stones in a different manner than many other places in Italy. The colors are much closer together than the prevailing dark green and white in Florence, for example. This gives an impressionistic effect to the surfaces, from a distance they are homogeneous but as you get closer the subtleties come out, hundreds of slightly different shades of whites and pinks.

This effect is hard to capture on camera so I don't have a good picture of it, but below is the central piazza of Assisi, Piazza del Comune. At the center of the piazza is the facade of a Roman temple, which stands in its original position, that has been incorporated into a small baroque church.



However, the thing most people come to Assisi to see is the church of San Francesco. Built after his death, it is monumental complex to a man who probably would have avoided its grandeur at all costs. Nevertheless, it is beautiful. The lower basilica and friary were started the year the saint was canonized, 1228, just two years after his death. The lower church was finished in 1230 when a mass was held during which the uncorrupted remains of the saint were interred in the crypt. The burial place was concealed for fear of grave robbers. The upper church was started sometime after 1239 and was finished in 1253 when Pope Innocent IV consecrated both churches.



The entrance to the lower church and then the upper church above.



The friary seen from slightly below.

While the exteriors are impressive, the interiors are more so. Every single surface in the upper church is covered in frescoes. Who painted the individual frescoes seems to change depending on who you ask, Italians say Giotto did the majority, while others say he may have overseen the project but it is unlikely he did much of the actual painting. Other masters of the time (late 13th century) feature prominently as well, with works by Cimabue, Simone Martini and Pietro Cavallini. Small stylistic details lead people to believe Giotto did not paint much himself, but the layout of each scene would insinuate he had a large role in the planning. He was known for his ability to position relatively few figures in the appropriate places to convincingly depict the emotion of a particular scene.

Here's one final picture of the sun setting as we were on our way out of town.