The melancholy Giottino adorned the chapel of St. Nicholas with his usual harmony of color. On the arches of the chapel of St. Louis of France a Franciscan tertiary, Adone Doni, painted the beautiful Sibyls which Raphael admired and imitated at Santa Maria della Pace in Rome. Taddeo Gaddi, the godson and favorite pupil of Giotto, has also left here many touching and beautiful paintings. In fact, all the renowned artists of the day seemed to vie with each other in adorning this monument to the memory of St. Francis, and some of their works were offerings of
love and gratitude. To the artistic eye they are models worthy of study, but to us pilgrims so many visions of beauty and holiness.
In the sacristy is the most authentic portrait of St. Francis in existence, by Giunta Pisano—a lank, wasted form that by no means reflects the charm the saint most certainly had to attract so many disciples around him, to say nothing of his power over the beasts of the earth and the birds of the air. Two marble staircases lead down to the sepulchral chamber where lies the body of St. Francis. This crypt, or third church, as it is sometimes called, is of recent construction, and, though not in harmony with the upper churches, is a prodigious achievement, dug as it is out of the rock on which the whole edifice rests. It is of the Doric order, and in the form of a Greek cross, and lined with precious marbles. It is dark and tomb-like, being lighted only by lamps around the bronze shrine, which stands in the very centre. The body of St. Francis had lain nearly six hundred years in the heart of the mountain, shrouded in a mystery that had given rise to many popular legends. When brought here in 1230, it was still flexible as when he was alive, and the mysterious stigmata distinctly visible. This was four years after his death. It was then shown to the people in its cypress coffin, amid the flourish of trumpets and the shouts of the multitude, and put on a magnificent car drawn by oxen which were covered with purple draperies sent by the Emperor of Constantinople, and escorted by a long procession of friars with palms and torches in their hands, chanting hymns composed by Pope Gregory IX. himself. Legates, bishops, and a multitude
of clergy followed. But the car was guarded by the magistrates of Assisi, and so fearful were the people lest the body of their saint should be taken from them that, when it arrived at the Colle d’Inferno, they would not allow the clergy to take possession of it, but buried it themselves in the very bowels of the earth. Hence a certain mystery that always hung over the tomb.
It is related that the third night after his burial the mountain was shaken by an earthquake and surrounded by an unearthly light. The friars, hastening to the place where they knew their patriarch lay hidden, found the rock rent asunder and the saint standing on his tomb with transfigured face and eyes raised to heaven. Gregory IX. is said to have come to witness the prodigy, and left this inscription on the wall: Ante obitum mortuus; post obitum vivens—Before his death, dead; after death, living.
It became a popular belief that this body, which bore the impress of the Passion of Christ, would never see corruption, and that he would remain thus, ever living and praying, in the depths of his inaccessible tomb.
In 1818 Pius VII. authorized the Franciscans to search for the body of their founder. After continued excavations in the rock for fifty-two days, or rather nights (for they worked in the silence and secrecy of the night), they came to an iron grate that protected the narrow recess where lay the saint. It was then the crypt was constructed to receive the sacred body. The same old grate is before the present shrine, and the sacristan thrust his torch through the bars, that we might catch a glimpse of the remains of one
“Whose marvellous life deservedly were sung
In heights empyreal.”
Around this glorious tomb all the Franciscans of Assisi, before they were suppressed by the present Italian government, used to gather every Saturday at the vesper hour, to chant, with lighted tapers in hand, the Psalm Voce mea ad Dominum clamavi, sung by St. Francis when he was dying. It has been set to music by one of the friars in a grand air known as the Transito because it celebrates the transit of the saint to a higher life. This became one of the attractions of the place which kings and princes considered it a favor to hear, but of course it is no longer sung. Let us hope that this forced suspension is only transitory.