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The Story of Assisi
"Between Tupino, and the wave
that falls
From blest Ubaldo's chosen hill, there hangs
Rich
slope of mountain high, whence heat and cold
Are wafted through
Perugia's eastern gate:
And Nocera with Gualdo, in its rear,
Mourn for their heavy yoke. Upon that side,
Where it doth break its
steepness most, arose
A sun upon the world, as duly this
From
Ganges doth: therefore let none who speak
Of that place, say Ascesi; for
its name
Were lamely so deliver'd; but the East,
To call things
rightly, be it henceforth styled."
DANTE, _Paradiso_, xi. (Cary's
translation).
[Illustration: _P. Lunghi.
Photo._
_Statue of St. Francis._
_by Andrea della Robbia in Sta. Maria
degli Angeli._]
The Story of Assisi
by Lina Duff
Gordon
Illustrated by Nelly Erichsen
and M. Helen
James
London: J. M. Dent & Co.
Aldine House, 29 and 30 Bedford
Street
Covent Garden, W.C. 1901
_First Edition,
December 1900_
_Second Edition, October 1901_
_All rights
reserved_
_To
Margaret
Vaughan_
_this small book is affectionately dedicated
in
remembrance of days spent together
in the Umbrian
country_
NOTE
My sincerest thanks are due to my
aunt Mrs Ross, to Mrs Vaughan, Dr E.
Percival Wright, M. Paul Sabatier, Mr
Sidney Colvin, Sir William
Markby and Mr Pearsall Smith, for the help
rendered me in various ways
during the writing of this book. I wish further
to acknowledge the
kindness of Mr Roger Fry who allowed me to quote from his
lectures on
Art delivered this year in London, before they were published in
the
_New Monthly Review_; and also the generous permission of Mr
Anderson
(Rome), and Signor Lunghi (Assisi), for allowing me to use
their
photographs. For the loan of old Italian books I am indebted to
Cav.
Bruschi, Librarian of the Marucelliana at Florence, to
Professor
Bellucci, Professor of the University of Perugia, and to Signor
Rossi,
proprietor of the Hotel Subasio at Assisi, whose intimate knowledge
of
his native town has been of great service to me.
L. D.
G.
POGGIO GHERARDO,
FLORENCE, _October
1900_.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I
PAGE
_War and
Strife_ 1
CHAPTER
II
_The Umbrian Prophet_
39
CHAPTER III
_The Carceri, Rivo-Torto and Life at
the
Portiuncula_ 81
CHAPTER
IV
_The building of the Basilica and Convent of
San
Francesco. The Story of Brother
Elias_ 117
CHAPTER
V
_Cimabue and his School at San
Francesco_ 149
CHAPTER VI
_The Paintings
of Giotto and his School in the
Lower
Church_ 168
CHAPTER
VII
_The Sienese Masters in the Lower Church.
The
Convent_ 198
CHAPTER
VIII
_Giotto's Legend of St. Francis in the Upper
Church_ 228
CHAPTER
IX
_St. Clare at San Damiano. The Church of
Santa
Chiara_ 258
CHAPTER
X
_Other Buildings in the
Town_ 289
CHAPTER XI
_The
Church of Santa Maria degli Angeli. The
Feast of the Pardon of St.
Francis or
the "Perdono
d'Assisi"_ 335
ILLUSTRATIONS
_Statue of St. Francis by Andrea della Robbia in
Sta. Maria degli
Angeli_
(_P. Lunghi--photo_)
_Photogravure-Frontispiece_
PAGE
_The Temple of
Minerva_ 3
_The Eastern Slope of
Assisi with the Castle,
from the Porta
Cappucini_ 10
_The Guelph Lion of
Assisi_ 22
_The Arms of
Assisi_ 37
_Assisi in the time
of St. Francis_ 38
_Via di S. Maria delle
Rose_ 58
_The Arms of the
Franciscans_ 80
_Hermitage of the
Carceri_ 82
_The Carceri with a View
of the Bridge_ 89
_Side Door of the Portiuncula
built by St. Benedict_ 99
_The Portiuncula in the time of St.
Francis, from
the "Collis Paradisi"_
107
_Assisi from the
Plain_ 113
_Church and Convent of
San Francesco_ 127
_San Francesco from the
Plain_ 147
_The Lower
Church_ 150
_Looking through
the doors of the Upper Church
towards the Porta S. Giacomo and
the
Castle_ 157
_Plan
of the Lower Church and Monastery of
San Francesco at
Assisi_ (_facing_) 168
_Choir and Transepts of
the Lower Church_ 172
_The Marriage of St. Francis
with Poverty_
(_D. Anderson--photo_)
179
_The Old Cemetery of San
Francesco_ 194
_The Knighthood of St. Martin by
Simone Martini_
(_D. Anderson--photo_)
201
_Bird's Eye View of the Basilica and Convent
of San
Francesco, from a drawing made in
1820_ 213
_San
Francesco from the Tescio_ 217
_Staircase
leading from the Upper to the Lower
Piazza of San
Francesco_ 220
_San Francesco from
the Ponte S. Vittorino_ 222
_A Friar of the Minor
Conventual Order of St.
Francis_ 225
_St.
Francis Renounces the World_
(_D.
Anderson--photo_) 233
_Death of
the Knight of Celano_
(_D.
Anderson--photo_) 247
_Arms of the
Franciscans from the Intarsia of
the
Stalls_ 257
_Door
through which St. Clare left the Palazzo
Scifi_ 262
_San
Damiano, showing the Window with the
Ledge whence St. Claire routed the
Saracens_ 268
_Santa
Chiara_ 282
_Santa Chiara
from near the Porta Mojano_ 287
_Campanile of San
Rufino_ 290
_Door of San
Rufino_ 295
_The Dome and Apse
of San Rufino from the
Canon's
Garden_ 298
_Campanile of
Sta. Maria Maggiore_ 309
_Church of Sta. Maria
Maggiore_ 310
_Church of S.
Pietro_ 313
_Confraternity of San
Francescuccio in Via
Garibaldi_ 315
_Monte
Frumentorio in the Via Principe di
Napoli_ 320
_House
of the Comacine Builders in the Via
Principe di
Napole_ 322
_Looking across the
Assisan roofs towards the
East_ 325
_View
of San Francesco from beneath the Castle
Walls_ 332
_The
Garden of the Roses at Sta. Maria degli
Angeli_ 339
_The
Fonte Marcella by Galeazzo Alessi_ 346
_An Assisan
Garden in Via Garibaldi_ 347
_Umbrian
Oxen_ 349
_Women from the
Basilicata_ 351
_San
Francesco_ 356
_Plan of
Assisi_ 372
The Story
of Assisi
CHAPTER I
_War and Strife_
"C'etait le temps des guerres sans pitie et des inimities
mortelles." H.
TAINE. _Voyage en Italie._ _Perouse et Assise._
All who ascend the
hill of the Seraphic City must feel its
indescribable charm--intangible,
mysterious, and quite distinct from
the beauty of the Umbrian valley. "Why,"
we ask ourselves, "this
stillness and sense of marvellous peace in every
church and every
street?" And, as though conscious of our thoughts, a young
Assisan,
with a gesture of infinite sadness towards the large, desolate
palaces
and broad deserted streets, said, as we lingered on our way:
"Ah!
Signore mie, our city is a city of the dead--of memories only." As
he
spoke a long procession of a grey-clothed confraternity, bearing
on
their breasts the franciscan badge, preceded by a priest who
walked
beneath a baldachino, streamed out of a small church. Slowly
they
passed down the road, and then the priest turned into a
wayside
cottage where lay a dying woman, while the others waited outside
under
the olive trees. But the sound of their chanting and the tinkling
of
the small bell came to us as we leaned over the city walls. Of a
truth
we felt the religious life of the town was not dead: perchance,
down
those streets, now so still, men had passed along to battle
during
the sad turmoil of the middle ages, had hated and loved as well
as
prayed, with all the fervour of their southern nature. We must turn
to
the early chroniclers to find in their fascinating pages that
Assisi
has had her passionate past and her hours of deepest trial.
Her
origin goes back to the days when the Umbrians, one of the most
ancient
people of Italy, inhabited the country north and south of the
Tiber, and
lived a wild life in caves. But the past is very dim; some
Umbrian
inscriptions, a few flint arrow heads, and some hatchets made
of jade found
on the shore of lake Thrasymene are the only records we
possess of these
early settlers.
If written history of their ways and origin is lacking,
the later
chroniclers of Assisi endeavour to supply with their gossip, what
is
missing. Rambling and strange as their legends often seem to
us,
nevertheless they contain a germ of truth, an image, faint but
partly
true of a time so infinitely far away. Most of the local
Umbrian
historians have awarded the honour of the foundation of their
own
particular town to the earliest heroes whom they happen to know
of,
and these are invariably Noah and his family. It is,
therefore,
curious to note that the Assisan chroniclers have departed from
this
custom and have woven for themselves a legend so different from
the
usual friar's tale: "Various are the opinions," says one of
them,
"concerning the first building of our city; but the most probable,
and
the most universally accepted by serious writers, is the one
which
gives Dardanus as her founder. In the year 713 after the Deluge,
and
865 years before the foundation of Rome, the first civil war in
Italy
broke out between the brothers Jasius and Dardanus, both sons
of
Electra; but the father of Jasius was Jupiter, while Dardanus was
the
son of Corythus, King of Cortona." The people of Umbria took sides,
as
some would have it that Jasius ought to be king in the place of the
dead
prince Corythus. Now it happened that Dardanus had pitched his
tent on the
slope of Mount Subasio, when a dream came to him that
Jupiter and Minerva
were preparing to assail the enemy, and that
Jasius would be vanquished. On
waking he determined, should his dream
be true, to raise a temple to the
goddess on the spot where he had
slept. He went forth to battle, and with the
help of the goddess drove
the enemy back with great slaughter; Jasius was
killed and they buried
him on the field of battle. "Full well did Dardanus
keep his vow, for
in a few months there arose a wonderful building, now known
as the
sacred temple, dedicated to the true Minerva of Heaven, under the
name
of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva. Thus it is that the country round
Assisi
has been called _Palladios agros_, the fields of
Pallas."[1]
[Illustration: THE TEMPLE OF MINERVA]
And thus the
monk dreams on about the Seraphic Province of Umbria; and
we dream with him
of the Umbrians who forsook the chase and their
shepherd huts on the heights
about Subasio, to gather round the
marvellous temple built by the hero ere he
went forth to found the
city of Troy. People came from afar to look at the
six-fluted columns,
and while marvelling at a thing so fair, they resolved to
build their
homes within sight and under the shadow of the sacred walls. Here
was
the nucleus of a future town. The simple shelters of cane
and
brushwood were soon replaced by huts of a neater pattern made
of
wattle and clay, with earthen floors, rounded porches and pent
roofs.
The dwellers by the temple throve and prospered, and all was peace
for
a while, until the van-guard of that mysterious people, the
Etruscans,
appeared on the Umbrian horizon. We are told how Dardanus,
while
visiting the King of Lydia on his way to Troy, drew such
a
highly-coloured picture of the loveliness of Tuscany, the
fruitful
qualities of the soil, and the lightness of the air, that
Tyrrhenus,
the king's son, was immediately sent with a large army to
take
possession of so rich a province. Then came a struggle, and
the
Umbrian tribes were driven back south of the Tiber, which
henceforth
strictly defined the boundary between Umbria and
Etruria.
Immediately to the west of Assisi, and on the longest spur of
hills
which juts out into the valley of the Tiber, stood the now
Etruscan
city of Perugia, to which a band of Etruscans had lately
immigrated.
The huge, grim walls which grew up round it after the advent of
the
new settlers, the narrow pointed gateways, some guarded by heads
of
stern and unknown deities, the general menacing and ferocious aspect
of
its buildings, soon warned the smaller Umbrian cities of what they
might in
coming ages expect from her inhabitants. It is probable that
skirmishes were
frequent between the neighbouring towns of Assisi and
Perugia, and to judge
from the subterranean passages which still exist
beneath the streets of the
former place, we may gather that she was
open to constant attacks, and that
her inhabitants found it more
prudent to disappear underground at the
approach of enemies than to
meet them in open battle. These subterranean
galleries, cut in the
soft tufa, extend for miles under the present city:
branching out in
all directions they form a veritable labyrinth of secret
passages.
Here swiftly and silently as the foe advanced, men and women
with
their children would disappear into the bowels of the earth,
some
being occasionally buried beneath masses of soil shaken down by
the
tramp of many feet above them. Repeated dangers of this sort at
last
decided the Assisans to meet their enemies in more war-like
fashion,
and to surround themselves--as Perugia had done--with stones
and
mortar. Soon the town bristled with towers and turreted gateways,
and
the houses, no longer built of wattle and mud, began to foreshadow
the
strongly fortified palaces of a later date. None too soon did
Assisi
prepare for war. In the year 309 B.C. the shrill sound of the
Roman
clarion echoed through the Cimminian forest. It roused Etruria
to
arms, proclaiming the fact that the Romans had dared to
penetrate
beyond this dangerous barrier which hitherto had been
deemed
impassable. The Etruscans and Umbrians, forgetting all their
former
strifes, now joined against the new power which threatened to
crush
their liberties. The battles which followed beneath the walls
of
Perugia, and by Bevagna in the plain of the Clitumnus, brought
all
Umbria, in the space of a single year, under the yoke of Rome.
And
now, although we leave the fields of legend and enter those of
history, we
find but little mention of Assisi: this is, however,
easily accounted for.
Built upon the unfrequented slopes of Mount
Subasio, like a flower gradually
opening to the sun's rays, she was
far more secure than her neighbour Perugia
who, commanding and
commanded by the road from Rome to Ravenna, along which
an army
passed, stood in haughty and uncompromising pre-eminence.
The
comparatively obscure position of Assisi therefore gave her
long
periods of peace, and these she employed in building
innumerable
temples, a theatre, and a circus. It is impossible to excavate in
any
part of Assisi without coming upon relics of that time. Statues
and
busts of the Cæsars, of gods and of consuls, are lying in dark
corners
of the communal palace, and broken fragments of
delicately-wrought
friezes and heads of goddesses, half buried in bushes of
oleander,
adorn the Assisan gardens. Beneath the foundations of the more
modern
houses, mosaic floors and frescoed walls have been found, showing
that
Assisi had her years of early splendour. But full of life and
action
as this Roman period was, it is as completely hidden from us as
are
the temples now buried beneath the present town. It passed
rapidly
away, and yet is of some importance in the history of the world
as
having witnessed the birth of Sex. Aurelius Propertius, great among
the
poets even at a time when Virgil, Horace, and a host of others
were filling
Italy with their song.
Many an Umbrian town prides itself on being the
birthplace of
Propertius. The people of Spello have even placed a tablet in
their
walls to claim him as her son; but the Assisans, ignoring the
rivalry
of others, very quietly point to the many inscriptions of
the
Propertius' family collected beneath the portico of the Temple
of
Minerva. One may be noticed referring to C. Passennus Sergius
Paullus
Propertius Blaesus, said to be a lineal descendant of the poet, who
is
supposed to have married after the death of the fair Cynthia,
and
returned to his native valley to pass his last days in
domestic
tranquillity. Angelo Poliziano, on the margin of an early edition
of
the poet's works now in the Laurentian Library of Florence, has made
a
note to the effect that Propertius, as well as St. Francis, was born
at
Assisi; and certainly modern writers assign the honour to Assisi.
The
somewhat vague utterances of Propertius as to his native town seem
to show
that the position of Assisi, with regard to Perugia and the
plain, more
nearly coincides with his description than that of any
other city in the
valley or on the hills. To one inquisitive friend he
answers: "Tullus, thou
art ever entreating me in the name of our
friendship to tell thee my country
and my descent. If thou knowest
Perusia, which gave a field of death and a
sepulchre to our father and
in Italy's hour of affliction, when domestic
discord drove Rome's own
citizens one against the other--(Ah! hills of
Etruria, to me beyond
measure have ye given sorrow, for ye suffered the limbs
of my kinsman
to be cast aside unburied, and denied the handful of dust to
cover his
bones)--there it was that, close above the margin of her plain
spread
below, Umbria, rich in fertile domains, gave me birth."[2] The
kinsman
spoken of here is a certain Gallus, who lost his life in B.C. 41,
when
Lucius Antonius was besieged in Perugia by Augustus. The horrors
of
the general massacre which followed the fall of the city left
sad
memories in the mind of Propertius, then a mere child. In the
general
confiscation of property after the battle of Philippi his family
lost
their estates. But poor as they were, Propertius was sent to Rome
to
study, where, recognised as the leader of a new school of poetry,
he
remained until shortly before his death, at the age of thirty-five.
His
paternal estates having been restored to him, he forsook the
splendour of the
Augustan court, the patronage of Maecenas, the
friendship of Virgil, and
returned to the Umbrian country where his
first inspirations had been
awakened. The contrast between a house and
garden on the Palatine hill, in
the midst of the stir of Roman life,
and a farm by the silent stream flowing
through the stillest of
valleys, must have been great. But, judging from his
description of
the country, he seems to have fallen readily into rural ways,
and
loved to watch the herds of white oxen, dedicated to the service
of
the goddesses, grazing close to the banks of the Clitumnus. We
may
infer that he hunted the "timorous hare and birds" in the thick
oak
forest of the Spoletan valley, but, as he playfully tells us, he
left
"the hazardous boar alone," for physical courage was not one of
his
characteristics.
From the plain his eyes were often raised in the
direction of Assisi,
and to his familiarity with her towers we owe this
exquisite
description of his birthplace, which, perhaps out of modesty, as
he
alludes to his own fame, he places in the mouth of a
soothsayer:
"Ancient Umbria gave thee birth from a noted household. Do I
mistake,
or do I touch rightly the region of your home, where misty
Mevania
stands among the dews of the hill-girt plain, and the waters of
the
Umbrian lake grow warm the summer through, and where on the summit
of
mounting Asis rise the walls to which your genius has added
glory."[3]
Nothing happens, or at least nothing is mentioned in
Assisan
chronicles until Christianity stealthily worked its way up from
Rome
about the third century. Then bloodshed followed during a period
of
darkness when Christians and pagans divided the town into factions
by
their bitter fights for religion. At first the Christians suffered,
and
many were martyred in the Umbrian rivers, but only to triumph
later when
Roman Assisi soon vanished and Christian basilicas were
built on the site of
pagan temples. Although, after the Roman period,
we find Assisi more nearly
linked with the general history of Italy,
she appears uninfluenced by outside
events, and her atmosphere of
remoteness remains unimpaired. Thus we may say
that Huns, Franks, and
Lombards merely passed by and left no lasting mark
upon the city. For
a moment she was suddenly aroused by the tempestuous
arrival of one or
other of their leaders, but once the danger was past she
returned to
her calm sleep upon the mountain side.
In 545 Totila, on
his march to Rome, arrived before the walls of
Assisi which were gallantly
defended for the Emperor Justinian by
Siegfried the Goth, but unfortunately
he being killed in a skirmish
with the Huns, the disheartened citizens
reluctantly opened their
gates to the enemy. For the first time in her annals
(the Roman
occupation had been peaceful enough) a foreigner--a tyrant set
foot in
her streets as master. But the restless Totila soon began to scan
the
country round for other cities to attack. Becoming aware of the
large
and wealthy city of Perugia perched upon the western hill, he
sallied
forth to capture a bigger prey, and Assisi enjoyed a further spell
of
peace.
[Illustration: THE EASTERN SLOPE OF ASSISI WITH THE
CASTLE, FROM THE
PORTA CAPPUCCINI]
In reading the long-winded
chronicles it is often difficult to gather
to which power the various small
towns at this time belonged. One
point is, however, clear, that during
endless contentions between the
Popes and the Greek, and later the German
Emperors, the Umbrian
cities were often left to manage their own affairs, and
because of the
periods of rest which they thus enjoyed and used in their
individual
ways, we are inclined to speak of them as republics. For a long
time
Assisi remained annexed to the Duchy of Spoleto, then under the
rule
of the Lombard Dukes whose advent had filled the different cities
in
the valley with Arian Christians, unfriendly to the Papacy.
Assisi,
together with other towns swerved from her allegiance to the Pope,
and
it is perhaps on this account that Charlemagne in 773 with
his
"terrible and fierce followers" came to besiege her. They laid
the
country waste, and made many attacks upon Assisi which met with
stout
resistance; but while prowling round the walls one night they
found
the main drain, and stealing through it they were able to discover
the
weakest part of the town. Next night they returned well armed,
slew
the guards who were keeping watch by the midnight fires, and
before
the citizens could rush to arms, the gates were opened to
Charlemagne.
The army passed in, her citizens were put to the sword, and the
town
razed to the ground.
"Thus," says a chronicler, "Assisi bereft of
her inhabitants, found
herself an unhappy widow. Then was the most clement
emperor grieved,
and ordering that the city should be rebuilt, he placed
therein a new
colony of Christians of the Roman faith, and the city was
restored,
and in it the Divine Worship."[4]
A small arched doorway
ornamented with a delicate frieze of foliage
still remains as a record of the
rebuilding of the city by
Charlemagne's Lombard workmen. The stone is
blackened, the tracery
worn away. Few find this dark corner in the Piazza
delle Rose, and the
people wonder at those who stop to look, for "it is ugly
and very
old," they say.
It was probably at this time, towards the end
of the eighth century,
that the Rocca d'Assisi was built. This made her a
more important
factor in Umbrian politics; and leaders of armies, who
hitherto had
paid her but a hurried visit, now vied with each other to
possess a
city with so fair a crown. The citizens had chosen for the site of
the
castle the part where the hill rises in a sudden peak above the
town,
looking to the north across a deep ravine towards the mountains
of
Gualdo and Nocera. Above the main building and the four
crenelated
towers soared the castle keep; from the ramparts started two lines
of
walls which, going east and west, gathered the town as it were within
a
nest. At intervals rose forts connected by a covered passage, and
tall towers
guarded the walls where they joined the city gates. The
Rocca d'Assisi with
this chain of walls bristling with iron spikes and
towers, complete in
strength and perfect in architecture, looked down
upon the town like some
guarding deity, and was the pride of every
citizen. It was no gloomy
stronghold such as the French kings erected
in the woods of Tourraine, but
built of the yellow Subasian stone it
seemed more like a mighty palace with
windows large and square, whence
many a _condottiere_ and many a noble
prisoner leant out to look upon
the splendid sweep of country from Perugia to
Spoleto.
Proud as the citizens were of their new-born importance they
soon
regretted the calmer days of their obscurity. By the twelfth
century
they were torn between the Pope, the Emperor, and their own
turbulent
factions, for even in the smaller towns the cries of Guelph
and Ghibelline
were beginning to be heard. Whenever German
potentates--"the abhorred
Germans" as the chroniclers call them--had
their hands well clenched upon an
Umbrian town, the citizens turned
imploring eyes towards Rome. The promise of
municipal liberty was the
bait which every pontiff knew well how to use for
his own profit. The
German, on the other hand, troubled not to use diplomacy
as a means
to gain his ends, but brought an army to storm the town, and took
up
his residence in the castle, whence he could hear the murmurings of
the
citizens below planning to drive him out of their gates. The
first
distinguished but unwelcome guest in the Rocca d'Assisi was
Frederick
Barbarossa. He was, however, too much occupied in his career
of
conquest to waste more than a few weeks in Umbria, and in 1195 we
find
Conrad of Suabia, who in the annals of the time is known by
the
nickname of "the whimsical one," in charge of the castle, with
the
title of Count of Assisi. Conrad was also Duke of Spoleto, but
he
preferred the fortress of Assisi as a residence and spent some
two
years there to the annoyance of the citizens, who were constrained
to
be more or less on their good behaviour. With him in those days was
a
small but important person, who, at the age of two, had been
elected
King of Germany and Italy. This was Frederick II, and the
legend
recounts how he was born in the Piazza Minerva beneath a tent
hastily
erected for the occasion, and in his third year was baptised in
the
Cathedral of San Rufino, amidst a throng of cardinals,
bishops,
Assisan priors and nobles. It would, indeed, be strange that he,
who
later was to prove a thorn in the side of many a Pope, should
have
been born and nurtured in the Seraphic City.
The Assisans soon
wearied of the German yoke, but unaided they could
not throw it off and it
needed the timely intervention of Innocent
III, to rid them of Conrad's
presence. The Pope, who had been quietly
waiting an opportunity to regain his
lost Umbrian towns, felt himself
powerful enough now that the Emperor Henry
VI, was dead, to send
haughty commands to Conrad. He was bidden to meet
Innocent at Narni
where he solemnly made over his possessions to the Church.
Thus left
to themselves, the Assisans, with cries of "Liberty and the
Pope,"
rushed on the castle to tear it down. Built to be their safeguard,
it
proved their greatest danger, and they determined that no other
tyrant
should find shelter within its walls. While the Assisans
were
rejoicing in their freedom, and endeavouring to guard against
the
constant attacks of the Perugians, the big world outside was
being
torn and rent by a medley of events which was carrying men's
thoughts
forward in the swift current of a fresh era. Everywhere a new
spirit
was spreading--"the fraternising spirit" it has been called. In
the
cities men were joining together in guilds, heralding
the
commonwealths; while, in the country, bands of people, under the
names
of Patarins, Albergenses, Poor Men of Lyons, etc., raised the
standard
of revolt yet higher against their feudal and spiritual lords.
A
contemporary writer speaks of thirty-two heresies as being rampant
in
Italy at this time. Men were eager and full of energy, finding
relief
through many channels that set all Italy in a ferment. But amidst
the
confusion of wars and heresies the Papal power grew ever
stronger,
until, with the accession of Innocent III, the claims of a
temporal
ruler were blended with spiritual rights. The Marches of
Ancona,
Umbria, and the seven hills of Rome belonged alike to him, while
he
was powerful enough to excommunicate cities, kingdoms, and emperors
at
his pleasure, and rule all with a rod of iron. The magnificent
designs
planned by Hildebrand seemed to triumph under Innocent, and yet
the
papal horizon was not without its clouds.
"Ah Constantine! of
how much ill was cause,
Not thy conversion, but those rich
domains
That the first wealthy Pope received of thee,"[5]
groans
Dante, in writing of the condition of the Church, and his cry
reaches back to
the time of which we write. Jacques de Vitry, who was
often at the court of
Innocent, also speaks with bitterness of the
depravity of the priests. They
were, he tells us, "deceiving as foxes,
proud as bulls, avaricious and
insatiable as the minotaur."
Innocent III, though scheming and ambitious,
was a man of lofty
character, and no one watched with so much anguish the
rising storms
which threatened to shake the mighty fabric of the Papacy. In a
moment
of discouragement he is said to have exclaimed that fire and
sword
were needed to heal the wounds made by the simoniacal priests, and
for
a long time he in vain sought a remedy for those ills. But
salvation
was at hand, and it came from the Umbrian mountains, as the
fresh
breeze comes which suddenly breaks upon the budding trees
in
springtime.
Within the narrow circuit of the Assisan walls arose a
figure of
magical power who drew men to him by the charm of his mysticism
and
the spell of his ardent nature. It is the sweet-souled saint
of
mediæval Italy--St. Francis of Assisi--who now illuminates this
quiet
corner of the world.
Francis Bernardone was born in the year
1182, when, as we have seen,
the Church was harrowed by a hundred ills. He
passed a gay youth, free
from every care, and tested all the pleasures that
riches could
procure. Though the son of a merchant he consorted with the
noblest of
the Assisan youths, who, partly on account of his father's
wealth,
partly because of his gaiety and love of splendour, were glad
to
accept him as an equal. All looked to the high-spirited, gifted
Francis
as the leader at every feast, the organiser of every
entertainment, and when
Perugia blew her war-trumpet he rode out to
battle side by side with the
Assisan cavaliers. Such, in a few words,
was his position in Assisi when in
his twenty-second year, after a
severe illness which brought him to the brink
of the grave, he
resolved to follow to the letter the precept of the Gospel
and lead
the life of the first apostles. So complete was his conversion
that
he, the rich merchant's son, was to be seen walking through
the
streets with bricks on his back for the repair of the ruined
churches
of Assisi, while his former companions drew back and laughed as
he
passed them. But their derision was of short duration, for the
charm
they had felt in former days had by no means passed away.
Holiness
could never make him sad, and in the human tenderness and
joyousness
of his nature lay the secret of that power which was strong
enough,
the Assisans soon discovered, to lead them where he would--though
it
was now by a new road he travelled.
The great movement, which began
at Assisi and spread throughout Europe
in a very few years, can only be
likened to that witnessed by the lake
of Galilee. Rich citizens gave all to
the poor; the peasants left the
vintage and sold their oxen, to join the
ever-swelling crowd of
bare-footed disciples who wandered through cities and
into distant
lands bringing comfort and words of peace to all they met. Like
a ray
of brilliant sunshine St. Francis dispersed the gloom of the
middle
ages, teaching men that the qualities of mercy and love were to
be
looked for from God instead of the inflexible justice that
had
overshadowed a religion intended to be all light. He walked the
earth
with joyous steps, inviting all to come with him and see how
beautiful
was the world; he looked upwards, praising God in bursts of
eloquent
song for the rain that fed the flowers, the birds that sang to him
in
the woods, and the blueness of his Umbrian sky. How different from
the
stern, orthodox saints who passed through the loveliest valleys
with
downcast eyes for fear of some hidden temptation or of
some
interruption to their prayers! With such a founder it is
hardly
surprising that the order of St. Francis spread and
multiplied,
becoming a great world force, as great and perhaps greater than
that
of St. Dominic. We get an interesting picture of the change he
wrought
throughout Italy and of the enthusiasm he kindled among his
followers
in a letter of Jacques de Vitry; from this we quote at length,
for,
being written by a contemporary of the saint, its value is very
great.
"While I was at the pontifical court I saw many things which
grieved
me to the heart. Everyone is so preoccupied with secular and
temporal
things, with matters concerning kings and kingdoms, litigations
and
lawsuits, that it is almost impossible to talk on religious
matters.
"Yet I found one subject for consolation in those lands: in that
many
persons of either sex, rich, and living in the great world, leave
all
for the love of Christ and renounce the world. They are called
the
Friars Minor, and are held in great respect by the Pope and
the
Cardinals. They, on their part, care nought for things temporal,
and
strive hard every day to tear perishing souls from the vanities
of
this world and to entice them into their ranks. Thanks be to God,
their
labour has already borne fruit, and they have gained many souls:
inasmuch as
he who listens to them brings others, and thus one
audience creates
another.
"They live according to the rule of the primitive church, of
which it
is written: 'The multitude of believers were as one heart and
one
soul.' In the day they go into the cities and the villages to
gain
over souls and to work; in the night they betake themselves
to
hermitages and solitary places and give themselves up
to
contemplation.
"The women live together near to cities in divers
convents; they
accept nought, but live by the labour of their hands. They are
much
disturbed to find themselves held in greater esteem, both by
the
clergy and the laity, than they themselves desire.
"The men of
this order meet once a year in some pre-arranged place, to
their great
profit, and rejoice together in the Lord and eat in
company; and then, with
the help of good and honest men, they adopt
and promulgate holy institutions,
approved by the Pope. After this
they disperse, going about in Lombardy,
Tuscany, and even in Apulia
and Sicily, for the rest of the year.... I think
it is to put the
prelates to shame, who are like dogs unable to bark, that
the Lord
wills to save many souls before the end of the world, by means
of
these poor simple friars."[6]
Certainly one of the most remarkable
events in mediæval history was
the result of the teaching of St. Francis upon
his own and future
generations. In his native city the strength of his
personal influence
and the love and veneration which he excited was
extraordinary. But we
notice even a stranger fact; with his death this holy
influence
apparently vanished, and it is possible that the memory of the
saint
is dearer to the hearts of the Assisans in what we are inclined
to
call the prosaic tedium of our trafficking nineteenth century, than
it
was in the years immediately following his death. Later centuries
have
shown us that his teaching and his presence there were not in
vain.
Assisi, down to our own times, has continued to be the Mecca
of
thousands of pilgrims. Her churches bear the record of infinite
early
piety, for when art was in its early prime the most famous
masters
from Tuscany were called upon to decorate the Franciscan Basilica
and
leave their choicest treasures there as tributes to the immortal
glory
of the saint. But the note of war rings louder than the song of
praise
and love for many years to come in all the Assisan chronicles,
and
grass and weeds grow up to choke, though not to kill, the blessed
seed
that Francis sowed and did not live to tend. No sooner did the
gates
of death close upon that sweet and genial spirit, than war,
lust,
strife and pestilence burst upon the very people he had so
tenderly
loved. The story of Assisi becomes, as it had never been before,
a
list of murders--of struggles to the death for individual power, and
of
wars which made the fair Umbrian country a desolate and cruel waste
for
months and even years.
Each town looked with hatred upon its powerful
rival, and the communal
armies were for ever meeting in the plain by the
Tiber to match their
strength and see if some small portion at least of a
city's domains
could not be wrested from her. The bitterest and most
pronounced
enemies in the valley were undoubtedly Assisi and Perugia. Their
feuds
date back to the twelfth century; but even before the Christian
era
these two cities of the hills had marked each other as a foe for
the
one was Umbrian, the other Etruscan, and they merely continued
the
rivalry of their founders. It is often difficult to discover the
cause
of each separate war, but it may, as a general rule, be traced
to
Perugia's inborn love of fighting, and to her restless spirit which
led
her to storm each town in turn. From her eyrie she looked straight
down upon
half the Umbrian country, and gazing daily on so fair a land
the desire for
possession grew ever stronger. Many towns were forced
to submit to her sway,
and by the thirteenth century she was the
acknowledged mistress of Umbria. It
is, therefore, with surprise and
admiration that we watch the undaunted
struggle of Assisi against a
tyrant whom she hated with a hatred quite
Dantesque in its bitterness
and strength. Many menacing towers were built on
either side of the
valley, and heralds were continually sent between the two
towns with
insulting messages to goad the citizens forward into battle.
When
Perugia was known to be preparing for an attack upon Assisi,
the
castles and villages around hastened to break their allegiance to
the
weaker city and ally themselves with the Perugian griffin. Assisi
was
thus often obliged to defend herself unaided against the
Umbrian
tyrant. When, in 1321 Perugia declared war against "this most
wicked
city of Assisi" whose crime consisted in having fallen under the
rule
of the Ghibelline party of her citizens,[7] both communes were in
need
of money as their bellicose habits had proved expensive.
Busily,
therefore, they set to work about procuring it, and in a
highly
characteristic manner Perugia sold her right of fishing in
Thrasymene
for five years, while the citizens of the Seraphic City entered
by
force into the sacristy of San Francesco and carried off a quantity
of
sacred spoils. Gold ornaments, censers, chalices, crucifixes of
rare
workmanship and precious stuffs, were divided into lots and
sold,
partly to Arezzo for 14,000 golden florins, and partly to Florence
for
a larger sum. Now these things did not even belong to the
Franciscans,
but had been carefully stored in the sacristy by the Pope and
his
cardinals during their last visit to the town. Great, therefore,
was
the wrath at the Papal Court when news came of the
sacrilegious
robbery, and without a moment's delay a bull of excommunication
was
fulminated from Avignon. For thirty-eight years Assisi lay under
the
heavy sentence of an interdict, and, except for the feast of
the
"Pardon of St. Francis," the church doors were closed and the
church
bells were silent. But not a whit did the people care for the anger
of
a distant Pope, and it is related that when the two friars brought
the
bull of excommunication to Ser Muzio di Francesco, the leader of
the
robbers, they were flogged within an inch of their lives, and
further,
they were made to swallow the seals of lead which hung from the
Papal document. |
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