The first hill town in Umbria that we visited was Assisi with a population of 25,000, the hometown of St. Francis, the patron saint of animals and ecology. The town of Assisi has a modern part that sits in the flat valley where the Basilica of St. Mary of the Angels is located
and then up in the hills is the old part of town where the famous Basicia of St. Francis is located, known as one of the most artistic and religious highlights of Europe. Only 3,500 people live in this part of Assisi.
We started our visit in Assisi with the Basilica of St. Mary of the Angels.
This is where St. Francis lived, worked and died.
This massive church was built in the 16th century around a humble, tiny chapel called the Porziuncola ("small portion") Chapel, located inside the church directly under the dome.
St. Francis was given a little land with this fixer-upper chapel by some local monks and this is where he lived after he founded the Franciscan Order. After St. Francis died in 1226, so many pilgrims wanted to pay homage to St. Francis that they built this larger church around the chapel to accommodate them all. This church is so large that we got lost wandering around because there are mini chapels, gardens and corridors here
that just keep on going. We wanted to see the garden of thornless roses but it wasn't really much of a garden.
The story goes that St. Francis was fighting a temptation (that he never named) and threw himself onto the roses. The thorns immediately dropped off and thornless roses have grown here ever since. Even before St. Francis was born, Assisi was always a spiritual center as seen by a first-century B.C. Temple of Minerva built by the Romans in the old part of town up on the hill.
The Temple of Minerva marked the forum in the day and stands out by it's six fluted Corinthian columns. The columns are original but other parts of the temple were added later. Once we were up in the hill town of Assisi, the views of Umbria were spectacular.
Assisi overlooks the richest and biggest valley in otherwise hilly and mountainous Umbria.
There were so many olive trees everywhere
and they were even available for purchase at the many gift shops.
I never saw so many religious artifacts for sale in one place as in Assisi.
Like I said before, Assisi has always been a spiritual center and there were lots of souvenirs available to help you remember this.
They even had pope bobbleheads.
One of the churches up here in the hill town was the Basilica of St. Clare built in 1265.
St. Clare was the female version of St. Francis. She was born in Assisi to a rich family but fell in love with Francis' message so she made secret arrangements to meet him against her family's wishes. She stayed in St. Mary's of the Angels Basilica where Francis cut her hair, clothed her in a simple, brown tunic and welcomed her into a life of voluntary poverty. Her family begged her to return but she would not budge. She spent the next 40 years within the confines of the convent barefoot, vegetarian, and largely silent. Her regimen of prayer, meditation and simple manual labor impressed commoners and popes, leading to her canonization almost immediately after her death.
The piazza in front of the church was the Piazza Chiesa Nouva with statues of St. Francis' parents holding chains; the chains by which they attempted to hold back Francis from following his life of poverty.
I suppose it depends on what order they belong to because we saw all different kinds of habits the nuns wore.
And, of course, we saw lots of Franciscan friars here.
The Franciscan order is the largest order in the Roman Catholic Church and is based on St. Francis' preachings of living in total poverty and penance. At a time of unprecedented church wealth, St. Francis inspired a refocus on spirituality through poverty, humility and the beauty of nature in Umbria. He called money the "devil's dung". He was born to a well-to-do family but gave up a life of power and riches for one of obedience, poverty and chastity. He lived a life most like Christ than any other saint by living as a poor, non-materialistic, wandering preacher.
Eventually, Spanish-speaking Franciscans settled in California where three of their missions grew into major cities: Los Angeles (named after St. Mary's of the Angels), San Francisco (named after St. Francis) and Santa Clara (named after St. Clare). For a small town, Assisi has a lot of religious history to it. Were we making a modern-day pilgrimage? To contemplate this thought, we took a rest on the main square, Piassa del Comune.
The town itself, aside from all the religious history, was very charming with all the cute shops, streets and alleyways.
We eventually met with our local tour guide, Marco, who took us to the Basilica of St. Francis. We passed under the ancient town gates dating back to 1316, an arch that marked the site of the Roman wall.
The Basilica of St. Francis did not allow photography inside but it is covered from top to bottom with frescoed scenes of St. Francis' life. (Fresco painting is a technique of mural painting using wet lime plaster. Water is used as the vehicle for the pigment to merge with plaster and with the setting of the plaster, the painting becomes an integral part of the wall. Many famous paintings in Italy are frescos - like the Last Supper - so they need constant restoration)
On the grounds of the basilica, there are huge arcades "supporting" it. These are the 15th-century quarters for the monks. The arcades that line the square and lead to the church housed medieval pilgrims.
My favorite photo of Assisi doesn't even have anything to do with St. Francis. It's a photo of a man and his dog sitting out front of a shop. Don't they look like they are living such a peaceful life? This photo may not be about St. Francis but it's hard not to feel the spirituality of this saint when visiting the special hill town of Assisi.
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