Basilica of San Francesco d'Assisi
Basilica di San Francesco
Interesting facts
- Before the basilica was built, its hill served as the place where criminals were executed, which is why it was called the Hill of Hell.
- Cimabue's frescoes in the Upper Church have darkened into something like photographic negatives, because the lead oxide in his paints changed over time.
- Cimabue's Madonna Enthroned with Saint Francis in the Lower Church, of around 1280, is thought to be the closest surviving likeness of the saint.
- The papal altar of the Lower Church was carved in 1230 from a single block of stone brought from Como.
- In 1934 four of Francis's closest companions — Brothers Rufino, Angelo, Masseo and Leo — were entombed in the crypt walls around his coffin.
- An urn at the crypt entrance holds the remains of Jacopa dei Settesoli, the Roman noblewoman Francis called 'Brother Jacoba', who was with him when he died.
- The Upper Church windows, made around 1270 partly by French and German craftsmen, are among the finest 13th-century stained glass in Italy.
- The 1997 vault collapse that killed two friars and two experts inspecting earlier quake damage was caught on video.
- In 1986 Pope John Paul II gathered more than 120 leaders of different religions in Assisi for a World Day of Prayer for Peace.
- John of Brienne, crusader king of Jerusalem and regent of the Latin Empire of Constantinople, is buried in the Lower Church.
Why it is worth it
Seen from the plain below, the Basilica of San Francesco is less a church than a fortress of faith: a long pale wall of arches on the western spur of Assisi, with the Sacro Convento stretched out on its buttresses. The foundation stone was laid on 17 July 1228, the day after Francis was canonised, by Pope Gregory IX, and the church was consecrated in 1253. The hill it stands on was once known as the Hill of Hell; with the saint's tomb on it, it became the Hill of Paradise.
The basilica is two churches stacked one above the other. The Lower Church is low and dim, vaulted like a crypt and built to hold the saint's body; the Upper Church above it is tall, light and Gothic. Brother Elias of Cortona oversaw the work, and he hid Francis's body so well, to protect it from relic hunters, that it was only rediscovered beneath the floor of the Lower Church in 1818, after which a crypt was built to receive it. The Romanesque bell tower was completed in 1239.
What makes Assisi one of the great places in European art is the painting. In the Upper Church, a cycle of 28 frescoes on the life of Francis, painted around the turn of the 14th century and traditionally attributed to Giotto, runs along the nave walls, episode after episode told with a new attention to real space and real gesture. Cimabue's Crucifixion fills the transept. Below, the Lower Church holds Pietro Lorenzetti's Passion scenes and the chapel of St Martin painted by Simone Martini, some of the most refined Sienese work anywhere. Moving from the gloom below to the brightness above is part of the design.
On 26 September 1997 two earthquakes struck Umbria; an aftershock brought down part of the Upper Church vault, killing four people and shattering the painted plaster. The restoration took two years. The basilica is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Assisi, inscribed in 2000.
Getting there
The basilica stands at the western end of Assisi's historic centre; Bastia Umbra is about 5 km away. Perugia San Francesco d'Assisi – Umbria International Airport (PEG) is about 8 km away. Assisi railway station is in Santa Maria degli Angeli in the plain below, roughly 3 km from the basilica, with local buses up to the old town.
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From the encyclopaedia
The Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi is the mother church of the Roman Catholic Order of Friars Minor Conventual in Assisi, a town in the Umbria region in central Italy, where Saint Francis was born and died. It is a papal minor basilica and one of the most important places of Christian pilgrimage in Italy. With its accompanying friary, Sacro Convento, the basilica is a distinctive landmark to those approaching Assisi. It has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2000.
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