Pictures in Umbria

by Katharine S. Macquoid

The vast baldness of Santa Maria's nave, rebuilt less than a hundred years ago, in consequence of the damage caused by an earthquake, was very uninteresting, but at the east end is the brown Portioncula, the home of Francis and of his first followers; for the little chapel remained uninjured when the earthquake shattered the walls of the outer church.

The dark walls of the Portioncula are covered with votive offerings, and over the entrance is a fresco by Overbeck. Looking within, it is difficult to imagine how the events recorded in the Fioretti could have found room to happen in the tiny place.

On the right is a chapel, the site of the cell of St. Francis; his portrait is over the altar, and there are frescoes of his companions. Our guide, a Franciscan, looked as if he had come direct from the thirteenth century, but he had not brought thence the warm, loving glow that must have radiated from the founder of his Order.

The great interest of the place is its story. The Portioncula was a well-known shrine, and had existed for years before Francis restored it from its ruinous condition. It has been told how, when he was a child, the saint was often taken by his mother to the little chapel, and prayed there beside her. Two years after he renounced his home and his father, Francis was kneeling here in prayer when he received his second inspiration. According to his biographers, he hastily rose, and, taking up a bit of cord near at hand, tied it round his waist, as the outward badge of the Order of Poor Brethren.

Our guide's scanty hair stood erect, and his red-veined blue eyes stared at us, as the Gorgons did in the Etruscan tomb. At first he would scarcely speak. He may have thought heretics would not appreciate his information. When we came to the little rose-garden outside the Chapel of the Roses, and talked to him about flowers, he thawed; he told us how an unbelieving English traveller had begged a rose-tree, so that he might try it in English soil, and how next year the Englishman had written to say that the rose-tree was covered with thorns; whereas at Santa Maria degli Angeli, these roses, brought here from St. Benedict's monastery near Subiaco, have been thornless ever since the day when St. Francis carried the original bushes from the Benedictine garden at Il Sacro Speco, and planted them here.

Our guide said we ought to pay our next visit when the roses were in blossom, "a sight to be met with in no other place." He took us into a chapel, where, under the altar, is the den into which the saint retired for penance—a most wretched hole; then we went into the sacristy, to see a Perugino. In another little chapel is the portrait of El Poverello, a very remarkable face, painted on a plank which once formed part of the saint's bed. There is a terra-cotta statue of him by Andrea della Robbia.

We went back to the church, and looked again at the Portioncula. In it Clara, or Chiara, took the vows, and here her beautiful hair was shorn from her head by St. Francis. Other memories of Santa Chiara cling about this church of Santa Maria. Perhaps the Third, or universal, Order was here determined on. The space outside has never been built on, because it was here that the memorable meeting took place between Clara and St. Francis, in answer to her repeated petitions that they might eat bread together. The meeting is very quaintly described in I Fioretti. Clara had often asked for this privilege; this time the Brothers seconded her request, and Francis granted it. He had, as soon as was possible, obtained for her the little church of San Damiano, and had built up little huts beside it for her and the poor ladies, who so soon joined her community. Clara passed the rest of her life among the Sisters, and died Abbess of the "Poor Clares" of San Damiano.

The community of Brethren met on the open space twice yearly; the great chapter of the Order convened by St. Francis eleven years after its beginning, recorded in the Fioretti, took place on this vacant ground. The number of the brethren must have increased very rapidly, for several thousands came over the hills and along the valleys from far-off parts of Italy to look their founder in the face, and to receive his instructions and his blessing. Among others came San Dominic, with some of his followers, and the Bishop of Ostia, Cardinal Ugolino, afterwards Pope Gregory IX.

The space occupied by Santa Maria must have been covered by the village of huts built by St. Francis and his Brothers. In an old map, these huts are shown built at regular distances on three sides of the Portioncula; among them is one larger than the rest, probably the Refectory or the Infirmary of the Brothers. Doubtless they lived here a happy family life, though Francis began early to send them out to found branches of the Order in other directions. The first sent away from the nest-like home was Bernard of Quintavalle, to Bologna; here he had to suffer insult and persecution, but he soon won many converts by his preaching, and established a community of Brothers Minor in that city, over which Francis appointed him guardian. This enterprise was repeated over and over again, with success, till, in his hunger after souls, several years later, El Poverello set forth with a couple of Brothers to Damietta to convert the Soldan, who is said to have permitted him to visit the Holy Sepulchre. His visit failed in its object, but it is spoken of by Jacques de Vitry, Bishop of Acre, as a fact.

He was never tired of exhorting his brethren to live joyfully, so as to make others happy. Their cares and the sorrow for sin which would from time to time beset them, they should, he told them, pour out to God in their prayers; he also exhorted them to live always according to the Rule of the Order.