Guides to the area
Assisi
Assisi is three quarters of an hour from the Casale. You can visit it as a city of art, and it is one. But you only understand it if you walk it the way the pilgrims did: on foot, uphill, in silence where it matters. This walk starts from the end — the tomb of Francis — and climbs back up through the town to the place where it all began.
Distance from the Casale
45 minutes.
Parking
Saba «Giovanni Paolo II» car park: as you come out you are in front of the Basilica.
How long
Half a day for the town; the whole day with Santa Maria degli Angeli, San Damiano and the Hermitage.
Tips
In the churches: shoulders and knees covered, voices low. Comfortable shoes: it is uphill.
The Basilica of St Francis
Piazza Inferiore and Piazza Superiore di San Francesco
They are two churches, one above the other, built in a few years after Francis's death, in the white and pink stone of Monte Subasio. The lower one is low and dark, painted by Cimabue, Simone Martini and the Lorenzetti brothers; the upper one is tall and full of light, with the stories of the saint's life attributed to Giotto. Beneath both, in the rock, is the tomb: Francis in the middle, and around him four of his first companions. It is the place where you keep quiet.
Curiosity
For almost six centuries nobody knew where it was. In 1230 Brother Elias, who led the Order, had the body brought into the newly finished basilica and walled it into the rock beneath the altar, so carefully that the spot was lost. It was found only on the night of 12 December 1818, by five friars digging in secret with picks and lanterns, after 588 years. The crypt you visit today was dug around that tomb.
Via San Francesco
From the Basilica towards the square
It is the pilgrims' street, climbing from the Basilica to the centre of the town. Walk it without hurrying: along the way are the Oratorio dei Pellegrini, painted inside, and the portico of the Monte Frumentario, which in the thirteenth century was a hospital. The houses are of stone, there are flowerpots at the windows, and the slope is gentle.
Piazza del Comune and the Temple of Minerva
The centre of the town
The square stands where the Roman forum stood, which is still there underneath, and can be visited. On the long side is a temple from the first century BC, with six whole columns across its front: inside, since the sixteenth century, it has been a church, Santa Maria sopra Minerva. It is one of the best preserved Roman temples in Italy, and it stands in the middle of a medieval square as if nothing had happened.
Curiosity
In 1786 the German poet Goethe came to Assisi specifically to see this temple, and in his book Italian Journey he described it with enthusiasm. The Basilica of St Francis, on the other hand, he did not visit: he walked past without going in. He had come for the Romans, not for the Middle Ages.
The Chiesa Nuova
Behind the town hall, a few steps from the square
A small church from 1615, built — King Philip III of Spain had it built — over what tradition holds to be the house of Pietro di Bernardone, Francis's father. Downstairs you can see the fondaco, the family's cloth shop, closed by a medieval wooden door. Here Francis was born rich, the son of a merchant, and from here he left.
Curiosity
In front of the church are two bronze statues: his parents. Pietro di Bernardone holds cloth and fabrics over his arm, his trade. Madonna Pica, the mother, holds a chain in her hand: tradition says the father locked Francis in the house to bring him to his senses, and that it was she who set him free.
The Basilica of Santa Chiara
Piazza Santa Chiara
Clare's church is striped white and pink, with great buttressing arches along its side, and in front a square open to the valley. It was built between 1257 and 1265, a few years after her death. Her body is in the crypt; in the chapel on the right is the Crucifix of San Damiano, the one that spoke to Francis.
Curiosity
The basilica was built around a smaller church, San Giorgio, which until 1230 had held the body of Francis, and where in 1228 he was proclaimed a saint. Clare too was buried there, in 1253, before being moved beneath the altar of the new church. The Poor Clares brought the Crucifix here in 1257, when they left San Damiano: today there is a copy at San Damiano.
San Rufino
The cathedral, at the top of the town
The cathedral is dedicated to Rufinus, the bishop who brought Christianity to Assisi in the third century and was killed there: he is the town's patron saint. The Romanesque façade, with its three rose windows, is among the most beautiful in Umbria. Inside, in the right-hand aisle, is the baptismal font.
Curiosity
Francis and Clare were both baptised in that font. Here the walk ends where their lives began: a few dozen metres from each other, in the same water. From San Rufino you go back down through the same town, downhill all the way, to the Basilica and the car park.
The Rocca Maggiore, if you have the energy
Above the town
From San Rufino, if you like, you can climb further, to the fortress that dominates Assisi. From up there you see everything: the town, the valley as far as Perugia, Monte Subasio behind you. It is the hardest part of the walk and it is not compulsory; but it is the only place from which you see Assisi whole.
The Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli
On the plain, below Assisi
Going down towards the valley, from far away you see a golden statue shining on top of a façade: it is the Madonna degli Angeli, in gilded bronze, placed up there in 1930. Beneath it is an enormous basilica, commissioned by Pope Pius V and built between 1569 and 1679 to a design by Galeazzo Alessi, with a single purpose: to protect three tiny places that stand inside it.
The first, in the middle, under the dome, is the Porziuncola: a little church of Subasio stone, not much more than a room, which Francis found abandoned and put back on its feet with his own hands. Here he gathered the first friars, here in 1212 he welcomed Clare as she left everything behind, here he asked for and obtained the Pardon of Assisi. The second is the Cappella del Transito: it was the infirmary cell, and there Francis died, on the evening of 3 October 1226. The third is the Rose Garden.
Curiosity
In 1832 an earthquake brought down the façade and the vaults of the aisles. Only the dome covering the Porziuncola remained standing, and the little church beneath it was left intact.
In the Rose Garden, tradition says, Francis threw himself among the wild roses to overcome a temptation, and the roses lost their thorns. A thornless rose still grows there today, Rosa canina assisiensis, which is found nowhere else. The Rose Garden is entered from the sacristy, and has its own opening times.
And the name of Los Angeles comes from here: the Spanish mission from which the city grew was dedicated to Our Lady of the Angels of the Porziuncola.
In the middle of the day in high season the pilgrimage coaches arrive: early morning or late afternoon is better. During Mass the Cappella del Transito cannot be visited.
Outside the walls, by car
Besides Santa Maria degli Angeli, there are two more places of Francis outside the town. They are a few minutes away, and quieter.
San Damiano
Just below the walls, among the olive trees. It is the little church where the Crucifix spoke to Francis and where Clare lived for forty years with her sisters. Here, in 1225, almost blind and ill, Francis composed the Canticle of the Creatures.
The Eremo delle Carceri
On Monte Subasio, four kilometres from the town, in the holm oak woods. It is the place where Francis and his companions withdrew to pray, in the caves. It is visited in silence; the woods around are full of paths.
In practice, from the Casale
When
On weekdays, and away from Easter and the summer months, there are fewer people: in the basilicas you can manage to be quiet. 4 October is the feast of St Francis, patron saint of Italy: the town is full. On 1 and 2 August there is the Pardon of Assisi, at the Porziuncola.
And in the evening
You are back in three quarters of an hour. Dinner at the Casale is served between 7:30 pm and 8:00 pm, by reservation.
Three quarters of an hour's drive, and dinner ready when you get back.
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