The Palazzo Scifi, in which the future Santa Chiara (the first member of the Second Order founded by St. Francis) was born, is only a very short distance from the church, afterwards built on the site of the old San Giorgio, and called, in memory of the Abbess of the Poor Clares, Santa Chiara.
On his return from Rome, when it became public talk that he had received tonsure, with the Pope's sanction to his Rule for the Order of Brothers Minor,—Frati Minori, as they were called,—Francis found himself in much higher favour with the Assisans.
Instead of the street preaching he and his Brothers had daily practised, he was offered the pulpit of San Giorgio; but that church was found too small for the multitudes who flocked to hear El Poverello, he was therefore invited to preach in the cathedral of San Rufino. This was considered a great honour, and it fixed public attention on the founder of the new brotherhood.
It was in San Rufino that this beautiful young girl, named Clara Scifi, daughter of the powerful Count Favorini Scifi, as despotic as he was powerful, heard the new preacher. Listening with rapt attention to these new doctrines of Poverty, Obedience, and Chastity for the love and glory of God, and in imitation of his life, the girl contrasted this teaching with the life lived around her. This new way, the way of the Cross, opened out to her a new revelation.
At that time, her father, a cruel and violent despot, had just laid his commands on her, his elder daughter, to wed a young noble of Assisi. While the girl listened to the saintly preacher, her heart and mind were deeply stirred; she determined to ask the Poverello's advice in her trouble. How could she follow out the purpose that had formed in her heart, that of leading the life he pictured, if she wedded the husband destined for her by her father. Her mother, the Lady Ortolana del Fiume, a daughter of the Fiumi, those hated enemies of the Baglioni of Perugia, and rivals of the Nepi of Assisi, was a devout and good woman. But Clara shrank from consulting her on this subject, lest she might breed discord between her parents; she therefore opened her heart to her aunt, Bianca Guelfucci, who seems fully to have sympathised with her niece's perplexity.
Francis was sorely troubled when the trembling girl sought him out at the Portioncula, and begged him to advise her. He said she must not act rashly, she must prove the reality of her vocation before he could counsel her to take the veil, and thus withdraw herself from her parents' guardianship. He bade her wrap herself in a sackcloth robe, with a hood drawn over her head so as to conceal her face, and thus, clad like a mendicant, beg her bread from door to door through the town of Assisi. Clara did this secretly; but it only added to the fervent strength of her vocation, and finally Francis consented to her wish.
On the night of Palm Sunday the girl quitted the Scifi Palace, and, accompanied by her aunt Bianca Guelfucci and a waiting-maid, went rapidly out by the Porta Nuova, and across the starlit plain. As they drew near the little brown chapel, surrounded by a thick wood, they heard the Brothers of the Poor chanting a Psalm, and, waiting till this had ceased, the trembling Clara knocked on the door and asked leave to enter.
Francis bade her come in, and he questioned her a little, then bade her kneel; she obeyed, and took the vows he prescribed, after which he cut off all her golden hair and laid it as an offering on the altar. When her companion had wrapped her in the veil and sackcloth garment of the Order, El Poverello led her and her aunt, through the dark night, to the way they had to follow to reach the convent of the nuns of San Paolo, about an hour's distance from Assisi. He told her that she would there be safe from persecution.
This Second Order of Franciscans was called, when Clara had established herself at San Damiano, the Sisterhood of "the Poor Clares." Her sister Agnes soon joined Clara, provoking the stormy displeasure of her father and her uncle, who was savagely cruel in his treatment of this young girl. The church of Santa Chiara was built after Clara's death by Fra Campello, in red and cream-coloured marble. It has a graceful campanile, and the flying buttresses are very remarkable; they spring completely across the pathway beside the church.
The building was begun in the year after Santa Clara's death, but the nuns remained at San Damiano for fifteen years longer; then the body of their foundress was removed to Santa Chiara, and they took up their abode in the convent adjoining the church. There are interesting pictures in this fine building, especially in the chapel of San Giorgio, and by this date the chapel probably contains the famous and very ancient crucifix brought here from San Damiano, before which Francis was kneeling when he heard the voice bidding him rebuild the ruined houses of God. This crucifix was, I think, when we saw it, in the convent of Santa Chiara, but we heard that it would be placed by the altar of the chapel.