Pictures in Umbria

by Katharine S. Macquoid

We passed by San Francesco, and up the long, solemn street which it seems to guard. Grass grows freely between the stones that pave the street, which mounts very steeply; farther up were shops, but all were full of silence. No one seemed to be alive within the dark openings on either side, though from the wares displayed it was evident that inhabitants were not far off; doubtless all sound asleep at this time of day.

At the top of the street on either side are tall old grey palaces; one of these, on the right, has a projecting roof, supported by long and beautifully-carved brackets. This is the Ospedale, with its curious door. On the left is the Palazzo Allemanni; over every door and window is the legend, In Domino confido.

The blue mountains, each range paler and more exquisite in tint as it rose behind another, were seen through a glimmering veil of sparsely-planted olives, and seemingly ended the street we were mounting; but, going on, we presently came out on the Piazza di Minerva.

Here is a fine, very ancient portico, supported by five columns of travertine, once the front of a temple to Minerva. Behind it is the more modern church of Santa Maria della Minerva. We were now on the site of old Roman Assisi, for the Forum lies below the Piazza, and one goes down steps to it. Formerly a flight of steps in front of the temple led to the Forum, and the effect must have been very fine; now the artificially raised ground of the Piazza takes away from the apparent height of the portico, which has no longer so lofty a position in the general view as of old. It seems a pity that the space round it is not clearer.

Up a turning not far from the Temple of Minerva we came to the cathedral of Assisi, San Rufino, built by Giovanni da Gubbio in twelfth and early part of thirteenth century. It has an interesting brown façade and a picturesque campanile; its three fine doorways and rose windows are full of beauty, but the interior is comparatively modernised, although a triptych by Niccolo da Foligno is worth seeing. There are many frescoes and pictures in Assisi, by Matteo da Gualdo, Tiberio di Assisi, l'Ingegno, and one at least by that rarely found master, Fiorenzo di Lorenzo. There are some in the small church of San Paolo, near the Temple of Minerva, some in the Palazzo Pubblico, and elsewhere. Beyond the Piazza Grande is the house wherein Metastasio was born.

But we found it difficult to detach our interest from Francis Bernardone, who is truly the moving spirit of Assisi, and, turning downwards to the right, we were soon in the little square of Chiesa Nuova. We knocked at the church door, and, after some delay, a very old monk, wearing the Franciscan habit, opened it.

He only nodded or shook his head in answer to our questions. The interest attaching to Chiesa Nuova lies wholly in the fact that it stands on the site of the Bernardone house. The shop of El Poverello's father is still preserved in the Via Portici. The high altar in Chiesa Nuova is supposed to occupy the place of the saint's bedchamber; a side-chapel on the right is an unaltered room of the house, that in which his mother, Madonna Pica, dreamed her wonderful dream. The door is still standing at which, in her vision, the angel appeared to her, with the tidings that her expected child would be born in a stable; this is said to be a later invention of the Franciscans. There is a dark cave in the church, said to be part of the cellar in which his father imprisoned Francis to cure him of his so-called fanatical follies. It looked dismayingly dismal. He was probably flung in here on his return from San Damiano. The little Piazza before the church was not that which witnessed the young saint's renunciation of the world, and heard his memorable vow. That scene took place in front of the now decayed romanesque church of Santa Maria Maggiore, near the Bishop's palace. This was one of the churches partly restored by St. Francis, who rebuilt its eastern end. It was probably on the Piazza here that Francis flung down money and clothing, and, sheltered only by the Bishop's mantle, borrowed the serge garment of a rough countryman, and began his new life.

Francis, when he left the Piazza, was free. He at once set to work to repair San Damiano, begging bricks and other needful materials from the more charitable of the citizens. He next restored another chapel in the neighbourhood; this completed, he fell to work on the wayside shrine to which his mother had often taken him as a child, the well-known chapel of the Little Portion of St. Mary, or, as it is to this day called, La Portioncula.

It belonged to the Benedictine abbey on the heights of Subasio, whence a priest occasionally came down the mountain to celebrate mass for worshippers. Francis found much comfort in this service, and it was a delight to him to restore with his own hands the little building to a weather-proof condition.

One day the Gospel read by the officiating priest greatly impressed Francis; it seemed to him that the life he was leading could not be altogether pleasing to God, because its aim was only the saving of his own soul: he ought surely to incite others to share the light he had received. From this time there began in him that intense hunger after souls which was, next to his love of God, the chief motive-power of his life. He had once been pre-eminent in folly, and by his vainglorious and prodigal example had led many souls to sin: he was bound, he decided, not only to submit himself joyfully to every trial, as a means sent to subdue his will and his self-pleasing nature, but he must try to prevail on others to follow the same discipline.