‘Twixt Arno and the Tiber,”
where
“He from Christ
Took the last signet which his limbs two years
Did carry.”
Above all, there is Assisi with his tomb, one of the most glorious in the world after that of Christ, around which centred all the poetry and art of the thirteenth century. We caught our first glimpse of it at Spello—Spello on its spur of red limestone—where we were shown the house of Propertius, “the poet of delicate pleasures,” in full sight of Assisi, where was born
one who sang of a higher love. Assisi stands on an eminence overlooking the whole country around, and we could not take our eyes off it all the way from Spello, till, glancing towards the valley below, we saw the towers and dome of Santa Maria degli Angeli, which encloses the sacred Porziuncula. We were now in the very “land of wonder, of miracle, and mysterious influences,” the first glimpse of which one can never forget. Think of a railway station close by the Porziuncula! We went directly there on descending from the cars.
St. Mary of the Angels is a vast church that stands almost solitary in the plain. It is modern also, and out of keeping with the venerable traditions of the place, which was a disappointment. The old church was nearly destroyed by an earthquake in 1854. The present one is of noble proportions, however, and has been compared to the garments of a queen that now clothe the humble sanctuary of the Porziuncula which stands beneath the dome, the first thing to strike the eye on entering the church. We hastened towards it at once, to pray where St. Francis so often wept and prayed, and where so many generations since have wept, and prayed, and found grace before God. It was here Picca, his mother, often came to pray before he was born, and where his birth was announced by mysterious songs attributed to the angels. St. Francis loved this spot above all places in the world; for it was here he was called to embrace the sublime folly of the cross, and where he laid the foundations of the seraphic order. It was here, in the year 1222, he beheld Christ and his holy Mother surrounded by a multitude of angels, and prayed that all who should
henceforth visit this chapel with hearts purified by contrition and confession might obtain full pardon and indulgence for all their sins. This was the origin of the celebrated indulgence of the Porziuncula, which the grave Bourdaloue regarded as one of the most authentic in the church, because granted directly by Christ himself. The treasures of the church were not dealt out so generously in those days as now, and thousands came hither from all parts of Christendom, in the middle ages, to gain this wonderful indulgence. When St. Bernardine of Siena came in the fourteenth century, he found two hundred thousand pilgrims encamped in the valley around. St. Bridget spent the whole night of one 1st of August praying in the Porziuncula; and still, when the great day of the Perdono comes (it lasts from the Vespers of the 1st of August till the Vespers of the following day), thousands flock down from the mountains and come up from the extremity of southern Italy. The highway is lined with booths where eatables and religious objects are sold. Processions come with chants and prayer. The great bell of Predicazione, originally cast for Fra Elias, is heard all over the valley from the Sagro Convento, announcing the indulgence. When the church doors open, an overwhelming crowd pours in with cries, and invocations, and vivas for the Madonna and St. Francis with true Italian exuberance of devotion.
The Porziuncula has wisely been left in its primitive simplicity, with the exception of the front, on which Overbeck, in 1830, painted the above-mentioned vision to St. Francis with true pre-Raphaelite simplicity. The remainder is just as it was in the time of the saint; only