The church of St. Nicholas is where they consulted the Gospel to know what manner of life they should lead.
On our way to all these places, so touching to the heart of a Catholic, we passed the theatre named for Metastasio, who was enrolled among the citizens of Assisi, and whose father was a native of the place. We visited likewise the portico of the temple of Minerva, now a church, which is one of the finest specimens of Greek art in Italy. Goethe stopped at Assisi on purpose to visit it, but, like our own Hawthorne after him, passed by the marvels of art around the tomb of St. Francis.
It must not be supposed that all this while we have forgotten St. Clare, the moon in the heavens of the Franciscan Order, of which St. Francis is the sun, as Lope de Vega, the celebrated Spanish poet, and, by the way, a Franciscan tertiary, says:
“Cielo es vuestra religion
Y como sol haveis sido,
Quereis que haya luna Clara
Mas que su mismo appellido.”
We now went to visit her shrine, which is in the church of Santa Chiara, on the very edge of the hill at the western extremity of Assisi. The so-called piazza in front is rather a broad terrace from which one looks directly down on the tops of the olives below. The church is of the purest Gothic style of the thirteenth century, with enormous flying buttresses to preserve it from earthquakes. Its lofty campanile
with open arches is one of the prominent features of Assisi. Adjoining is the monastery of Clarists, that looks more like a castle with ramparts and battlements. We entered the sculptured portal between two lions growling over their cubs, and found ourselves in a great church without aisles, almost without ornament, cold, severe, and deserted. It was once nearly covered with paintings, of which only a few remain. Over the main altar are encircled some of the celebrated virgin saints who early gave their souls to heaven: Agnes, Cecilia, Catherine, Lucy, Clare—a Corona Virginum indeed, full of delicacy and expression, painted by Giottino. In a side chapel is an interesting old picture of St. Clare, said to have been painted by Cimabue thirty years after her death. It represents her with noble but delicate features, a fair complexion and smiling lips, and majestic in form. In fact, she was of uncommon stature. The body of her sister Agnes is in a tomb over the altar.
This church was first known as St. George’s, but took the name of St. Clare after her body was brought here for burial. Here the canonization of St. Francis took place. Through a grate that looks into the nuns’ chapel, we saw by the light of a candle the old Byzantine crucifix—of the tenth century, at least—which spoke to Francis at San Damiano: Vade, Francisce, et repara domum meam quæ labitur. It is painted on wood, with the Maries and St. John at the foot, and angels hovering over the arms of the cross.