The Story of Assisi

by Lina Duff Gordon

SANTA CHIARA

Upon entering the church of Santa Chiara out of the sunshine, we are struck with a sense of the coldness of its scant ornamentation, a want of colour, and a general idea that artists in first directing their steps to San Francesco had not had time to give much thought to the church of the gentle saint. Giottino is said by Vasari to have painted frescoes here, and they may be those ruined bits of colour in the right transept where it is only possible to distinguish a few heads or parts of figures here and there in what seems to be a procession, perhaps the Translation of St. Clare from San Damiano to San Giorgio. It is said that their present condition of ruin is due to the German bishop Spader who, fearing that the nuns might see too much of the world through the narrow grating because of the number of people who came to see the frescoes, had them whitewashed in the seventeenth century. The people came less, the nuns were safer, but Giottino's (?) frescoes are lost to us and we do not bless the memory of the German bishop of Assisi. The frescoes of the ceiling he did not touch, and we have in them some interesting work of an artist of the fourteenth century whose name is unknown, but who undoubtedly followed the Giottesque traditions, though not with the fidelity or the genius of the artist who painted the legend of St. Nicholas in San Francesco. In decorating the four spandrels he has been influenced by the allegories of Giotto, and the angels are grouped round the principal figures in much the same manner; they kneel, some with hands crossed upon their breasts, but they are silent worshippers with not a single instrument among them. The saints who stand in the midst of the angels in Gothic tabernacles are the Madonna with a charming Infant Jesus who grasps her mantle, and St. Clare; St. Cecilia crowned with roses, and St. Lucy; St. Agnes holding a lamb, and St. Rose of Viterbo; St. Catherine, and St. Margaret with a book in her hand. The artist has used such soft harmonious colours and bordered his frescoes with such pretty medallions of saints' heads and designs of foliage that one wishes he had been given the whole church to decorate and thus saved it from its present desolate appearance.

The large crucifix behind the altar, a characteristic work of that time, has been ascribed to Margaritone, Giunta Pisano, or Cimabue. It was painted, as the inscription says, by the order of the abbess Benedicta, who succeeded St. Clare and was the first to rule in the new convent, but the artist did not sign his name. The chapel of St. Agnes contains a Madonna which Herr Thode with far-seeing eyes recognises through all its layers of modern paint as Cimabue's work. There is also a much retouched, but rather charming picture of St. Clare, painted according to its inscription in 1283. She stands in her heavy brown dress and mantle, a thick cord round her waist, and on either side are scenes from her life. The small triptych of the Crucifixion on a gold ground is an interesting work by the artist of the four frescoes of the ceiling, and a nearer view of some of the peculiarities of his style is obtained. It is impossible to mistake the long slender necks, the curiously shaped ears with the upper part very long, the narrow eyes, straight noses and small mouths, sometimes drooping slightly at the corners, which he gives his figures. He is another of those nameless painters who came to Assisi in the wake of the great Florentine.

The visitor would leave Santa Chiara with a feeling of disappointment were it not for the chapel of San Giorgio, the original place so often mentioned in connection with St. Francis and now open to the public. The crucifix of the tenth century, so famous for having bowed its head to St. Francis in the church of San Damiano bidding him to repair the ruined churches of Assisi, is to be removed from the parlour, where it is temporarily kept, and placed behind the altar. The chapel, with a groined roof, is square, small and of perfect form, and ornamented with several frescoes. On the left wall is a delightful St. George fighting the dragon in the presence of a tall princess, her face showing very white against her red hair. There is a naïve scene of the Magi, whose sleeves are as long and whose hands are as spidery as those of the princess; and above is an Annunciation. Behind the curtain in the fresco a small child is standing who is evidently the donor, but some people believe he represents the Infant Jesus, which certainly would account for the surprised attitude of the Virgin. This wall was painted in the sixteenth century by some artist of the Gubbio school, but his name we have been unable to discover. Quite a different character marks the frescoes upon the next wall, which would seem to be the work of an Umbrian scholar of Simone Martini, or at least by one more influenced by the Sienese than the Florentine masters. There is a softness and an ivory tone in the paintings of the saints, a languid look in their eyes, a sweetness about the mouth peculiar to the Umbrian followers of Simone, who like him succeed less well with male than with female saints. Here the Madonna, seated on a Gothic throne against a crimson dais, with a broad forehead and blue eyes, her soft veil falling in graceful folds about her slender neck, is unusually charming. The St. George with his shield is perhaps less disappointing than St. Francis, but then Simone fails to quite express the nature of the Seraphic Preacher. We turn to St. Clare of the oval face and clear brown eyes, and feel that the painter had a subject which appealed to him, even to the brown habit and black veil which makes the face seem more delicate and fair. Above are the Crucifixion, Entombment and Resurrection, suggesting in the strained attitudes of the figures a follower of Pietro Lorenzetti. Some remains of frescoes upon the next wall resemble those in the nave of the Lower Church, and probably also belong to the second half of the thirteenth century. Indeed the architecture of the chapel bears a striking resemblance to San Francesco, so that although this is the original building of San Giorgio which existed long before the Franciscan Basilica, it was in all probability remodelled by Fra Campello, who may have given it the pretty groined roof.

But above all the works of art and all the views of church or convent, the pious pilgrim treasures the privilege of being able to gaze upon the body of the saint in the crypt below the high altar reached by a broad flight of marble stairs. St. Clare had been buried so far out of sight and reach that her tomb was only found in the year 1850, after much search had been made. Five bishops, with Cardinal Pecci, now Pope Leo XIII, and the magistrates of the town, were present at the opening of the sepulchre; the iron bars which bound it were filed asunder, and the body of the saint was found lying clad in her brown habit as if buried but a little while since; the wild thyme which her companions had sprinkled round her six hundred years ago, withered as it was, still sent up a sweet fragrance, while a few green and tender leaves are said to have been clinging to her veil. So great was the joy at discovering this precious relic that a procession was organised "with pomp impossible to describe."

SANTA CHIARA FROM NEAR THE PORTA MOJANO

On the Sunday at dawn every bell commenced to ring calling the people to high mass, and never, says a proud chronicler, were so many bishops and such a crowd seen as upon that day. At the elevation of the Host the bells pealed forth again announcing the solemn moment to the neighbouring villages; soon after the procession was formed of lay confraternities, priests and friars, and little children dressed as angels strewed the way with flowers. The peasants, with tears raining down their cheeks, pressed near the coffin, and had to be kept back by some of the Austrian soldiers then quartered in Assisi. First they went to the Cathedral, then to San Francesco, "the body of St. Clare thus going to salute the body of her great master. Oh admirable disposition of God." It was evening before they returned to the church of Santa Chiara, where the nuns anxiously awaited them at the entrance of their cloister to place the body of their foundress in the chapel of San Giorgio until a sanctuary should be built beneath the high altar. It was soon finished, ornamented with Egyptian alabaster and Italian marbles, and the body of St. Clare was laid there to be venerated by the faithful.

As pilgrims stand before a grating in the dimly lighted crypt the gentle rustle of a nun's dress is heard; slowly invisible hands draw the curtain aside, and St. Clare is seen lying in a glass case upon a satin bed, her face clearly outlined against her black and white veils, whilst her brown habit is drawn in straight folds about her body. She clasps the book of her Rule in one hand, and in the other holds a lily with small diamonds shining on the stamens. The silence is unbroken save for the gentle clicking of the rosary beads slipping through the fingers of the invisible nun who keeps watch, and as she lets the curtain down again and blows out the lights there is a feeling that we have intruded upon the calm sleep of the "Seraphic Mother."