The Story of Assisi

by Lina Duff Gordon

The "Noli mi Tangere" upon the opposite wall may also have been designed by him, but the type of the faces are heavier than his, and the angels are no longer swift spirits of the heavens ending in flame and cloud.

The painter, as if wishing to remind the faithful of the new life symbolised in the resurrection of Christ, has covered the rocks and ground with flowering rosebushes and exquisitely designed tufts of ferns and leaves.

The story of the Prince and Princess of Marseilles is a favourite subject with the Giottesque school. The legend tells that when Mary Magdalen arrived at Marseilles with Lazarus and Martha, she met a prince and his wife who were praying to the gods for a son, and she persuaded them to pray instead to the God of the Christians. Their desire was granted, and they were converted, but evidently being of a cautious turn of mind, they resolved to sail at once for Jerusalem and find out if St. Peter's teaching agreed with that of the Magdalen. On the way a terrible storm arose, and during the tempest the princess gave birth to a son, and died. The sailors insisted that her body must be thrown overboard or the storm, they said, would not abate; at last the prince was forced to lay the body of his wife upon a rocky island in the midst of the ocean, and calling upon Mary Magdalen for help, he left the child wrapt in the cloak of its dead mother by her side and continued the journey to the Holy Land. His visit to St. Peter ended in his complete conversion, and upon his return to France he stopped at the rocky island where he found his wife and son alive and well, thanks to the prayers of St. Mary Magdalen. They returned to Marseilles, the vessel being guided by angels, and the whole town became Christian.

Above the arch facing the altar is a very charming fresco of the Magdalen standing at the entrance of a cave, her hair falling like a mantle of cloth of gold about her, to receive the gift of a garment from a charitable hermit who had heard of her life of austerity and privation among the mountains of Provence.

The single figures of St. Clare, St. Mary Magdalen and St. Rufino, as well as the saints in the vaulting opposite the altar, no longer follow Giotto's designs and are far inferior to the other frescoes. Teobaldo Pontano, Bishop of Assisi between 1314 and 1329, is supposed to be the kneeling figure at the feet of St. Rufino as donor of the chapel. It is so unlikely Giotto should have repeated his later Paduan designs in a feebler manner, as seen here, or that a pupil should have slavishly copied them, that it seems more probable the chapel dates from the time of St. Bonaventure, when its decoration may have been begun by Giotto and completed by some later Florentine follower called in by the bishop who desired to be buried here. The Pontano arms decorate the beautiful stained glass windows, which certainly date from the first half of the fourteenth century, and are the finest in the Lower Church with the exception of those in St. Martin's chapel. Each figure has a claim on our admiration, but especially lovely is the figure of the Magdalen whose hair falls to her feet in heavy waves of deepest gold. In the last division of the right window is the death of the saint, with the lions at her feet which are supposed to have dug her grave.

The Chapel of St. Antonio di Padova.—Built by the Assisan family of Lelli in the fourteenth century, it was once ornamented by Florentine frescoes of the same date which were destroyed when the roof fell in, and it has now nothing of interest save the windows. These contain some naïve scenes from the life of St. Anthony; among them may be noticed his preaching to the fish which raise their heads above the water to listen.

Chapel of San Stefano.—This like the last, has only very decadent frescoes by Adone Doni and is solely interesting for its windows (second half of fourteenth century), where below the symbols of the Evangelists are single figures of saints, among them King Louis and the royal Bishop of Toulouse. Cardinal Gentile di Montefiore, founder of the chapel of S. Martino, was also the donor of this one and is represented in the right window with his crest, a tree growing out of a blue mound against an orange background.

The Chapel of St. Catherine, or Capella del Crocifisso.—This chapel was built by order of Cardinal Albornoz towards the end of the fourteenth century when on his passage through Umbria to reconquer the rebellious cities for the Roman Pontiff. He conceived at Assisi so great a love for the memory of St. Francis that he desired to be buried there; but though his body was brought to Assisi from Viterbo where he died in 1367, it was afterwards carried to his bishopric at Toledo "at small expense," writes an economical chronicler, "upon men's shoulders"; only a cardinal's hat, suspended from the roof of the chapel, now remains to remind us of the warlike Spanish prelate. The frescoes here have been assigned to that mythical person Buffalmaco, of whom Vasari relates such humorous tales. All we can say is that they belong to the second half of the fourteenth century and are not very pleasing scenes from the life and martyrdom of St. Catherine of Alexandria, with a fresco of Cardinal Albornoz receiving consecration from a pope under the auspices of St. Francis. The windows are the first things to shine out amidst the gloom as one enters the Lower Church. Especially attractive are the figures of St. Francis and St. Clare, their cloaks of the colour of a tea-rose, and of the other saints in green and russet-brown standing in a frame of twisted ribbons tied in bows above their heads. Unfortunately the glass has been repaired in some places by careless modern workers and we see such strange results as the large head of a bearded man upon the body of St. Catherine, high up in the left hand window.