Pictures in Umbria

by Katharine S. Macquoid

GIOTTO.

We had for years desired to make a pilgrimage to Assisi, and now, across the lovely valley the sight of the little white town clinging to Monte Subasio, veiled by grey and purple vapour, was a daily reminder of our wish. Some places stamp themselves into the heart, and while life lasts the longing to revisit them increases, till realisation quenches desire. A visit to such a haunt of delightful memories as Assisi requires time, so we waited till a few days could be spared.

It was very early morning when we drove down from Perugia along the Assisi road, a road bordered by the silver and gold of olive-groves and vineyards. Fragrant, dewy freshness lay on everything; even when the sun rose higher, and blazed fiercely down on us, we had become so absorbed by the surrounding scenery and its associations that we did not seem to feel the brilliant heat.

Now and then, between the leafy trees on our right, we had glimpses of yellow Tiber on its way to Rome. Francis Bernardone must also have enjoyed these glimpses as he walked to and from Assisi with some favourite disciple, perhaps along this very road.

St. Francis did a far greater work for his contemporaries than any reformer of the later Renaissance period. He did not attack popes and bishops, or find fault with everything and everybody who differed from his special ideas: he used the most powerful means by which to influence mankind,—he lived the life he preached. He had been accustomed to luxury and every form of self-pleasing,—he gave up all to follow the way of the Cross, from love to his Saviour. In that brutal and licentious age, the beginning of the thirteenth century, his example seems to have been irresistible. The life of poverty, obedience, and chastity enjoined by his rule sounded utter folly when first proclaimed to the multitude; but it says something in favour of those times that, when the first outcry ceased, and his fellow-citizens witnessed the harmony that existed between his life and his teaching, he was left comparatively unmolested, and his work was not materially interfered with. Though he died at forty-four, he lived long enough to see his Order recognised by Holy Church and by secular potentates, and to know that its widely spread communities were firmly established wherever they had planted themselves.

It may be said of St. Bernard and St. Dominick, that they also practised all they preached, but one feature peculiar to St. Francis is not chronicled of those other revivalists,—his idea of life was a very happy one. In the century that followed, Boccaccio did not teach joy as a duty one whit more strenuously than the Poverello did, although the two men's ideas of the source of joy were so opposite.

One remembers the recorded talk about joy, of that which fails to make, and of that which is the true root of happiness, between Francis and Fra Leone,—a talk which continued for two miles, while the master and his disciple walked out from Perugia to Assisi.

At last Fra Leo, called by Francis "the little sheep of God," cried out: "Father, tell me, I pray thee, wherein can perfect happiness be found?"

Whereupon Francis made his well-known answer, recorded in the eighth chapter of I Fioretti ("The Little Flowers of St. Francis").

As we drove along we remembered that the hills looking down on us, now varied by exquisite cloud-shadows, had listened to cheerful lays, improvised in the Provençal tongue by Francis as he trudged along this road. He did not have his hymns rendered into Italian verse, so that they might be understood by the people, until he needed them to help his teachings; his sympathy with human nature taught him the power of music in creating fervent devotion.