CHAPTER IX
_St. Clare at San Damiano. The Church of Santa
Chiara._
"Comme les fleurs, les ames ont leur parfum qui ne
trompe jamais."--P. SABATIER. _Vie de S. Francois
d'Assise_.
The days of St. Clare from the age of eighteen until her
death in 1253 were passed within the convent walls of San Damiano, and
though peaceful enough, for a mediæval lady, they were full of events
and varied interest.
She was born on the 10th of July 1194 in Assisi
of noble parents, her father being Count Favorino Scifi (spelt also Scefi)
the descendant of an ancient Roman family who owned a large palace in the
town, and a castle on the slope of Mount Subasio to the east of the ravine
where the Carceri lie among the ilex woods. The castle gave the title
of Count of Sasso Rosso to its owners, and was the cause of
much skirmishing between the Scifi and the Ghislerio who were
continually wresting it from each other, until in 1300, during one of
these struggles, the walls were razed to the ground and no one
sought afterwards to repair its ruins. Of Sasso Rosso a few stones
still remain, which, as they catch the morning light, are seen from
Assisi like a grey crag projecting from the mountain, high above the road
to Spello. When not fighting beneath the walls of his castle
Count Favorino was generally away on some skirmishing expedition, and
during his absences, his wife, the Lady Ortolana of the noble family of
the Fiumi, would depart upon a pilgrimage to the south of Italy or even
to the Holy Land.[101] An old writer remarks that her name
"Ortolana (market gardener) was very appropriate, because from her, as from
a well-tended orchard, sprang most noble plants." After her return
from Palestine she one night heard a voice speaking these prophetic
words to which she listened with great awe. "Be not afraid Ortolana,
for from thee shall arise a light so bright and clear that the darkness
of the earth shall be illuminated thereby." So the daughter who was
born soon after was called Chiara in memory of the divine message. With
so pious a mother it is not surprising that Clare should have grown
up thoughtful and fond of praying; we even hear of her seeking
solitary corners in the palace where she would be found saying her
rosary, using pebbles like the hermits of old instead of beads upon a
chain. But her evident inclination for a religious life in no way
alarmed Count Favorino, who had made up his mind that she should marry
a wealthy young Assisan noble, for even at an early age she showed
great promise of beauty. "Her face was oval," says a chronicler,
"her forehead spacious, her complexion brilliant, and her eyebrows and
hair very fair. A celestial smile played in her eyes and around her
mouth; her nose was well-proportioned and slightly aquiline; of good
stature she was rather inclined to stoutness, but not to excess." A
little while and her fate in life would have been sealed in the ordinary
way, and she would have continued to look out upon the world through
the barred windows of some old Assisan palace; but great changes
were being wrought in the town even when Clare had just passed
into girlhood. With the rest of her fellow-citizens, rich and poor, she
was destined to feel the potent influence of one who suddenly appeared
in their midst like an inspired prophet of old, calling on all to
repent, and picturing higher ideals in life than any had hitherto dreamed
of. Although her first meeting with St. Francis has not been recorded
by any early biographer, we may be sure that from the age of fourteen, and
perhaps even before, the story of his doings had been familiar to her, for
the stir his conversion made among the people, his quarrels with his father,
and the many followers he gained, even among the nobles, were of too
extraordinary a nature to pass without comment in the family of the
Scifi.[102] Their palace being near the Porta Nuova it is certain that Clare
and her younger sister Agnes must have often seen St. Francis pass on his way
to San Damiano, carrying the bricks which he had begged from door to door to
repair its crumbling walls, and heard him scoffed at by the children and
cursed by his angry father. As his fame as a preacher grew the Scifi family
hurried with the rest to listen to his sermons in the cathedral, or perhaps
even in the market-place, where he would stand upon the steps of the
old temple and gather the peasants around him on a market day. But
the decisive time arrived in the year 1212, when St. Francis, by then
the acknowledged founder of a new order sanctioned by the Pope, and
no longer jeered at as a mad enthusiast, came to preach during Lent in the
church of San Giorgio. It was the parish church of the Scifi, and the whole
family attended every service. Clare was then eighteen, young enough to be
carried away by the words of the franciscan and build for herself a life
outside her present existence; old enough to have felt unbearable the
trammels of a degraded age, and to long, during those years of warfare to
which all the cities of the valley were subjected, for an escape to where
peace and purity could be found. Only dimly she saw her way to a perfect love
of Christ. The preacher's words were addressed to all, but she felt them as
an especial call to herself, and unhesitatingly she resolved to seek
out the friar at the Portiuncula and ask his help and counsel in what
was no easy task. Instinctively knowing her mother could be of no
aid, even if she sympathised in her cravings for a more spiritual life,
she gained the confidence of her aunt, Bianca Guelfucci, who all
through played her part regardless of Count Favorino's possible
revenge.
Even during the first two years of his mission St. Francis
was accustomed to receive many men who wished to leave home and
comforts, and tramp along the country roads with him, but when the young
Chiara Scifi threw herself at his feet imploring him to help her to
enter upon a new way of life, his heart was troubled, and, reflecting
on what wide results his preaching was taking, fear even may have
formed part of his surprise. Bernard of Quintavalle he had bidden sell
all that he had, distribute it to the poor, and join him at the
leper houses; but before allowing Clare to take the veil he sought to
prove her vocation beyond a doubt, and bade her go from door to door
through the town begging her bread, clad in rough sack-cloth with a hood
drawn about her face. Her piety only increased until St. Francis,
believing that he was called upon to help her, resolved to act the part of
the spiritual knight errant.
[Illustration: DOOR THROUGH WHICH ST.
CLARE LEFT THE PALAZZO SCIFI]
On Palm Sunday, arrayed in their richest
clothes, the members of the Scifi and the Fiumi families attended high mass
in the cathedral, and with the rest of the citizens went up to receive the
branches of palms. But to the astonishment of all Clare remained kneeling as
if wrapt in a dream, and in vain the bishop waited for her to follow
the procession to the altar. All eyes were upon her as the bishop,
with paternal tenderness, came down from the altar steps to where the
young girl knelt and placed the palm in her hand. That night Clare left
her father's house for ever. A small door in the Scifi palace is
still shown through which she is said to have escaped. It had been walled
up for some time, but the fragile girl gifted that night with
superhuman strength and courage, tore down timber and stones and joined
Bianca Guelfucci, who was waiting with some trembling maidservants where
the arch spans the street, to accompany her to the Portiuncula (see
p. 104). Great was the consternation in the family when next morning
her flight was discovered, and news came that she had found shelter in
the benedictine convent near Bastia. Count Favorino and his wife lost
no time in following her, fully persuaded that by threats or
entreaties they would be able to induce her to return home and marry the man
of her father's choice; but they knew little of the strength of
character which lay hidden beneath the gentle nature of the eldest and
hitherto most docile of their daughters. The violent words of her father
and the tears of her mother in no way shook Clare's
determination; approaching the altar she placed one hand upon it while with
the other she raised her veil, and facing her parents showed them the close
cut hair which marked her as the bride of Jesus Christ. No earthly
power, she said, should sever her from the life she had chosen of her
own free will, and crest-fallen they left the convent without
another word. It was hardly surprising that Agnes, the second sister,
who sometimes went to see St. Clare at Bastia, should wish to take
the veil. At this the fury of Count Favorino knew no bounds, and he
sent his brother Monaldo with several armed followers, among whom may
have been Clare's slighted lover, to force Agnes, if persuasion failed,
to abandon her vocation. She was at their mercy but refused to leave
the convent, so they caught her by her long fair hair and dragged
her across the fields towards the town, kicking her as they went;
her cries filled the air, "Clare, my sister, help, so that I may not
be taken from my heavenly spouse." The prayers of Clare were heard,
for suddenly the slight form of the girl became as lead in the arms of
the soldiers, and in vain they tried to lift her. Monaldo, beside
himself with rage, drew his sword to strike her when his arm dropt
withered and useless by his side. Clare, who had by this time come upon
the scene, begged them to desist from their cruel acts, and cowed by
what had happened they slunk away, leaving the sisters to return to
the convent.
St. Francis seeing the devotion and steady vocation of
both Clare and Agnes, and doubtless foreseeing that many would follow their
example, began to seek for some shelter where they could lead a life of
prayer and labour. Again the Benedictines of Mount Subasio came forward
with a gift, offering another humble sanctuary which the saint had
repaired some years before. This was San Damiano, a chapel so old that
none could tell its origin; the vague legend that it stands on the site
of a pagan necropolis seems confirmed by a lofty fragment of Roman masonry
which juts up on the roadside between the Porta Nuova and San Damiano. With
his own hands St. Francis built a few rude cells near the chapel, resembling
the cluster of huts by the Portiuncula, and here the "Poor Ladies" were to
pass their days in prayer and manual labour. The little humble grey stone
building among the olive trees with the pomgranates flowering against its
walls, so different to a convent of the present day, must have seemed to
Clare the realisation of a freer life than ever she had known before. Others
felt its charm and before long several friends had joined her besides
Bianca Guelfucci, while upon the death of Count Favorino, Madonna
Ortolana received the habit from the hands of St. Francis together with
her youngest daughter Beatrice. The fame of the order spread far and
wide, gaining so many novices that several new houses were founded in
Italy even during the first few years. In those early days St. Clare
was given no written law to follow, but like the brethren she and her
nuns learnt all the perfection of a religious life from St. Francis,
who would often stop at San Damiano on his way to and from the town.
He did not allow them to go beyond their boundaries, but a busy life
was to be passed in their cells; owning nothing, they were to
depend entirely upon what the brothers could beg for them in the town
and country round, and when provisions were scarce they fasted. In
return the nuns spun the grey stuff for the habits of the friars and
the linen for their altars; and after St. Francis received the
Stigmata, St. Clare fashioned sandals for him with space for the nails so
that he might walk with more ease. Often the poor came to seek help at
her hands, and many times the sick were tended in a little mud hut
near her cell which she used as a hospital. Silently her life was
passed, and to those who looked on from the outside perhaps it might
have seemed of small avail compared with the very apparent results of
St. Francis' endeavours to help his fellow creatures. But very quietly
she was guiding the women of mediæval Italy towards higher aims, for
even those who could not follow her into the cloister were aided in
their lives at home by the thought of the pure-souled gentle nun of
San Damiano. Not the least important part of her work was the
womanly sympathy and help which she gave to St. Francis. He turned to her
when in trouble, and it was she who encouraged him to continue preaching
to the people when, at one time he thought that his vocation was to be
a life of solitary prayer and not of constant contact with mankind.
He counted on her prayers, and trusting in her counsel went forward
once more to preach the words of redemption. From her lonely cell
she watched his work with tender solicitude, and when blind and ill
he came for the last time to San Damiano she tended to his wants in
a little hut she erected for him not far from the convent whence,
across the vineyard and olive grove which separated them, the first
strains of his glorious Canticle to the Sun came to her one morning.
Her gentle influence played an important part in his life, giving him
a friendship which is one of the most beautiful things to dwell on
in their lives. Some have sneered at its purity, and compared so ideal
a connection to a commonplace mediæval tale of monk and nun; but it
is degrading even to hint at such an ending to the love of these two
for each other, and impossible to believe it after reading M.
Sabatier's beautiful chapter on St. Clare, where he touches, in some of his
most charming pages, upon a side of St. Francis' character that
most biographers have but little understood.
A beautiful story in the
_Fioretti_ relates how once St. Clare, desiring greatly to eat with St.
Francis, a boon he had never accorded her, was granted the request at the
earnest prayer of the brethren, "and that she may be the more consoled," he
said, "I will that this breaking of bread take place in St. Mary of the
Angels; for she has been so long shut up in S. Damian that it will rejoice
her to see again the House of Mary, where her hair was shorn off, and she
became the bride of Christ." Once more St. Clare came to the plain of
the Portiuncula, and the saint spoke so sweetly and eloquently of
heavenly things that all remained wrapped in ecstacy, oblivious of the
food which was spread before them on the floor and, as Clare dwelt
in divine contemplation, a great flame sprang up and shrouded them
in celestial light. The Assisans and the people of Bettona, looking
down from their walls upon the plain, thought that the Portiuncula was
on fire, and hurried to the assistance of their beloved saint. "But coming
close to the House," says the _Fioretti_, "they entered within, and found St.
Francis and St. Clare with all their company in contemplation wrapt in God as
they sat round the humble board." Comforted by this spiritual feast St. Clare
returned to San Damiano, where she was expected with great anxiety, as it had
been imagined that St. Francis might have sent her to rule some other
convent, "wherefore the sisters rejoiced exceedingly when they saw her
face again." Those were peaceful and happy days, but sorrow came when
news reached her that St. Francis was near his end; "she wept
most bitterly, and refused to be comforted," for she too was ill,
and feared to die before she could see his face again. This fear
she signified through a brother unto the Blessed Francis, and when
the saint, who loved her with a singular and paternal affection, heard
it, he had pity on her; and considering that her desire to see him
once more could not be fulfilled in the future, he sent her a letter
with his benediction and absolving her from every fault.... "Go and
tell sister Clare to lay aside all sadness and sorrow, for now she
cannot see me, but of a truth before her death both she and her sisters
shall see me and be greatly comforted." But the last she saw of him
was through a lattice window, when they brought his dead body for the
nuns to see and kiss the pierced hands and feet (see p. 119).
* * * * *
[Illustration: SAN DAMIANO, SHOWING
THE WINDOW WITH THE LEDGE WHENCE ST. CLARE ROUTED THE SARACENS]
A
strange thing happened to disturb the peaceful serenity of their lives at San
Damiano in the year 1234, when the army of Frederic II, was fighting in the
north of Italy, and a detachment of Saracen troops under one of his generals,
Vitale d'Anversa, came through Umbria, pillaging the country as they passed.
Assisi was a desirable prey, as it had been to many before them, and coming
to the convent of San Damiano they scaled its walls, preparatory to a final
rush upon the town. The terror of the nuns may be imagined, and running to
the cell where Clare lay ill in bed they cowered round her "like
frightened doves when the hawk has stooped upon their dovecote." Taking
the Blessed Sacrament, which she was allowed to keep in a little
chapel next to her cell, she proceeded to face the whole army, trusting
like St. Martin in the power of prayer and personal courage. As she
walked towards the window overlooking the small courtyard a voice spoke
to her from the ciborium saying, "Assisi will have much to suffer, but
my arm shall defend her." Raising the Blessed Sacrament on high she
stood at the open window, against which the soldiers had already placed
a ladder; those who were ascending, as they looked up towards her,
fell back blinded, while the others took to flight, and thus cloister
and city were saved through the intercession of the gentle saint.
Vitale d'Anversa, who had not been present at the prodigy, probably
thinking the soldiers had failed in their enterprise through lack of
valour, came with a still larger company of men, and led them in person
to storm the town. St. Clare, hearing what peril encompassed Assisi,
and being asked by the citizens to intercede with Heaven as the enemy
had sworn to bury them beneath their city walls, gathered all her
nuns about her, and knelt in prayer with them. At dawn the next morning
a furious tempest arose, scattering the tents of the Saracens in
every direction, and causing such a panic that they took refuge in
hasty flight. The gratitude of the citizens increased their love for
St. Clare, as all attributed their release to her prayers, and to this
day she is regarded as the deliverer of her country.
One cannot help
regretting that while so many contemporary chroniclers have left detailed and
varied accounts of St. Francis, they only casually allude to St. Clare,
calling her "a sweet spring blossom," or "the chief rival of the Blessed
Francis in the observance of Gospel perfection," but leaving later writers to
form their own pictures of the saint. And the picture they give is always of
a silent and prayerful nun, beautiful of feature, sweet and gentle of
disposition, coming ever to the help of those who needed it, and acting the
part of a guardian angel to the Assisans. Her horizon was bounded by
the mountains of the Spoletan valley; and from the outside world, on
which her influence worked so surely during her life and for long
centuries after her death, only faint echoes reached her when a pope or
a cardinal came to see her, or a princess wrote her a letter from
some distant country. Among the many royal and noble people who had
entered a Poor Clare sisterhood, or like St. Elizabeth of Hungary had
joined the Third Order, was the Blessed Agnes, daughter of the King
of Bohemia, who, kindled with a desire for a religious life upon
hearing the story of St. Clare, refused the hand of Frederick II, and
passed her life in a convent. Often she wrote to the Assisan abbess
getting in reply most charming letters, beginning "To her who is dearer to
me than any other mortal," or "To the daughter of the King of Kings,
to the Queen of Virgins, to the worthy spouse of Jesus Christ;
the unworthy servant of the poor nuns of San Damiano sends greetings
and rejoicings in the good fortune of living always in the
extremest poverty." These two never met, but their friendship was a close
one, and their correspondence, of which many letters are preserved,
ceased only with their death.
St. Clare survived St. Francis
twenty-seven years, and they were sad years for one, who, like her clung so
devoutly to his rule and teaching. She lived to see the first divisions among
the franciscans, and before she died the corner-stone of the great Basilica
had been raised, filling her with dismay for the future, for in its
very grandeur and beauty she saw the downfall of the franciscan ideal.
Not only did she witness all these changes, but in her own convent she
had many battles to fight for the preservation of the rule she loved,
she even courageously opposed the commands of the Pope himself who
wished to mould the nuns to his wishes as he had done the friars. Even
during the lifetime of St. Francis, while he was absent on a
distant pilgrimage, Gregory IX, then Cardinal Ugolino, persuaded St. Clare
of the necessity of having a written rule, and gave her that of
the Benedictine nuns. But when she found that, although it was
strict enough, it allowed the holding of property in community, which
was entirely against the spirit of her order, she refused to agree to
the innovation. So upon the saint's return he composed a written rule
for the sisters, so strict, it is said, that its perusal drew tears
from the eyes of the Cardinal Ugolino. Still she had to fight the battle
of loyalty to a dead saint's memory; for the very year that Gregory
came to Assisi for the canonisation of St. Francis he paid a visit to
St. Clare, and with earnest words endeavoured to persuade her to
mitigate her rule. She held so firmly to her way that the Pope thought
she might perhaps be thinking of the vow of poverty which she had made
at the Portiuncula, and told her he could absolve her from it through
the powers of his papal keys. Then Clare summoned all her courage as
she faced the Pontiff, and said to him these simple words which showed him
he need try no more to tempt her from duty, "Ah holy father," she cried, "I
crave for the absolution of my sins, but I desire not to be absolved from
following Jesus Christ."
Gregory had often been puzzled by the unique
unworldliness of St. Francis; his admiration for St. Clare was even more
profound, and in reading his letters after leaving the franciscan abbess one
forgets that he was over eighty at the time. With him she had gained her
point once and for all, but upon his death she had to oppose the wishes
of Innocent IV, who did all in his power to merge the franciscan order
of Poor Clares into an ordinary Benedictine community. Again it ended
in the triumph of St. Clare, and the day before her death she had the
joy of receiving the news that the Pope had issued a papal
bull sanctioning the rule for which both St. Francis and she had
fought; namely, that they were to live absolutely poor without any
worldly possession of any kind. "N'est-ce pas," says M. Sabatier, "un des
plus beaux tableaux de l'histoire religieuse, que celui de cette femme
qui, pendant plus d'un quart de siecle, soutient contre les papes qui
se succedent sur le trone pontifical une lutte de tous les instants;
qui demeure egalement respectueuse et inebranlable, et ne consent a
mourir qu'apres avoir remporte la victoire?"
St. Clare during the
remaining years of her life suffered continually from ill-health, and it was
from a bed of infirmity that she so ardently prayed the Pope to sanction her
rule of poverty, and enjoined the sisterhood to keep its tenets faithfully.
Like St. Francis, brave and cheerful to the last, she called her weeping
companions around her to give them her final blessing and farewell. Among
them knelt the Blessed Agnes, who had come from her nunnery in Florence to
assist her sister, and the three holy brethren Leo, Angelo and Juniper. On
the 11th of August 1253, the feast of St. Rufino, as she was preparing
to leave the world they heard her speak, but so softly that the words were
lost to them. "Mother, with whom are you conversing?" asked one of the nuns,
and she answered: "Sister, I am speaking with this little soul of mine, now
blessed, to whom the glory of paradise is already opening."
Then as
the evening closed in and they were still watching, a great light was seen to
fill the doorway leading from the oratory of St. Clare to her cell; and from
out of it came a long procession of white-robed virgins led by the Queen of
Heaven, whose head was crowned with a diadem of shining gold, and whose eyes
sent forth such splendour as might have changed the night into the brightest
day. And as each of the celestial visitors stooped to kiss St. Clare,
the watching nuns knew that her soul had already reached its
home.
* * * * *
Once the little
chapel of San Damiano has been seen there can be no fear of ever forgetting
the charm attached to the memory of St. Clare, for she has left there
something of her own character and personality, which we feel instinctively
without being able quite to explain its presence. So near the town, only just
outside its walls, this little sanctuary yet remains as in the olden times,
one of the most peaceful spots that could have been chosen for a nunnery; but
the silence which falls upon one while resting on the stone seats before
entering the courtyard, has this difference with the silence of such a piazza
as that of San Rufino or of some of the Assisan streets; that there
the buildings tell of an age which is dead whose memories raise
no responsive echoes in our hearts, whereas San Damiano is filled with the
associations of those who, living so long ago, yet have left the atmosphere
of their presence as a living influence among us. As we look at the steep
paths below us leading through the fields and the oak trees down to the
plain, to Rivo-Torto and the Portiuncula, we think how often St. Francis went
up and down it whenever he passed to see St. Clare and her sisters. And how
many times did Brother Bernard come with messages when he lay dying, and news
was anxiously awaited at San Damiano; then along the grass path skirting the
hill from Porta Mojano were seen the crowds of nobles, townsfolk, peasants
and friars bearing the dead body of the saint to San Giorgio, and pausing
awhile at the convent for the love of St. Clare. A pope with all
his cardinals next passes, on a visit to the young abbess; St.
Bonaventure stops to ask her prayers; while the poor and the ill were
ever knocking at the convent door to obtain her help or a word of
kindly sympathy. In the Umbrian land it is so easy to realise these
things, they are more than simply memories for those who have time to
pause and dream awhile; and sometimes it has seemed, while reading
the _Fioretti_ or Brother Leo's chronicle beneath the olive trees of
San Damiano, that we have slipped back through the ages, and looking up
we half expect to see the hurrying figure of St. Francis moving quickly in
and out among the trees. Suddenly the low sound of chanting comes through the
open door of the convent reaching us like the incessant drone of a swarm of
bees in the sunshine, until it dies away, and brown-clothed, sandalled
brethren pass out across the courtyard, and two by two disappear down the
hill on their way to the Portiuncula. They bring a whole gallery of portraits
before our eyes, of brethren we read of, the companions of St. Francis; but
when we look along the path they have taken and see the church of the Angeli
standing high in the midst of the broad valley, its dome showing dark purple
against the afternoon light, where we had thought to catch a glimpse of
the Portiuncula and a circle of mud huts, the dream of the olden
time fades suddenly away. As we turn to enter the little church of
San Damiano with the image of the great church of the plain still in
our thoughts, we feel how much we owe to the reverence of the people
and the friars who have kept it so simple and unadorned, its big
stones left rough and weather-beaten as when St. Francis came to prepare
a dwelling-house for sister Clare. Truly says M. Sabatier, "ce petit coin
de terre ombrienne sera, pour nos descendants, comme ce puits de Jacob ou
Jesus s'assit un instant, un des parvis preferes du culte en esprit et en
verite."
The church is very small and dim, with no frescoed walls or
altar pictures to arouse the visitor's interest, and only its
connection with the names of Francis and Clare bring the crowds who come to
pray here. Even the crucifix which spoke to St. Francis, telling him
to rebuild the ruined sanctuary, no longer hangs in the choir, but is
now in the keeping of the nuns in Santa Chiara. A few relics are kept
in the cupboard--a pectoral cross given by St. Bonaventure, the bell
with which St. Clare called the sisters to office, her breviary written
by Brother Leo in his neat, small writing, and the tabernacle of alabaster
which she held up before the invading host of Saracens upon that memorable
occasion. There is also a small loaf of bread which recalls the well-known
story recounted in the _Fioretti_ (cap. xxxiii.) of how Pope Innocent IV,
came to see St. Clare, "to hear her speak of things celestial and divine; and
as they were thus discoursing together on diverse matters, St. Clare ordered
dinner to be made ready, and the bread to be laid on the table so that the
Holy Father might bless it; and when their spiritual conference
was finished, St. Clare, kneeling most reverently, prayed him to bless
the bread which was on the table. The Holy Father replied: 'Most
faithful Sister Clare, I will that thou shouldst bless this bread and make
upon it the sign of the most blessed Cross of Christ, to whom thou hast
so entirely given thyself.' St. Clare said: 'Holy Father, pardon me, for I
should be guilty of too great a presumption if in the presence of the Vicar
of Christ, I, who am but a miserable woman, should presume to give such a
benediction.' And the Pope answered: 'That this should not be ascribed to
presumption, but to the merit of obedience, I command thee by holy obedience
to make the sign of the Holy Cross on this bread, and to bless it in the name
of God.' Then St. Clare, as a true daughter of obedience, most devoutly
blessed that bread with the sign of the Holy Cross. And marvellous to say,
incontinently on all the loaves the sign of the Holy Cross appeared most
fairly impressed; then of that bread part was eaten and part kept for the
miracle's sake."
A ring belonging to St. Clare was also kept here,
until in the year 1615 a Spanish franciscan vicar-general with his secretary
came to visit San Damiano, and such was his devotion for anything that
had belonged to the saintly abbess that when a few months later the
relics were being shown to some other visitors, the precious ring
was missing. A great disturbance arose in the city, and angry letters
were speedily sent after the Spanish priest as suspicion had fallen
upon him at once; he did not deny that he had piously stolen the ring,
but as it was now well upon its way to Spain where, he assured the
irate Assisans, it would be much honoured and well cared for, he refused
to return it. The citizens and friars still regret the day that
the Spanish dignitary and his secretary called at San Damiano.
The
small chapel out of the nave was built in the middle of the seventeenth
century to contain the large Crucifix which is still there, and whose story
is very famous. In 1634 Brother Innocenzo of Palermo was sent to the convent
to carve a crucifix for the friars, his sanctity and the talent he possessed
as an artist being well known. After nine days he completed all except the
head, and on returning next morning after early mass he found that mysterious
hands had fashioned it during the night; not only was it of
wonderful workmanship, but looking at it from three different points of
view three different expressions were seen--of peace, of agony, and
of death. The fame of the Crucifix spread throughout Umbria, and
people flocked to San Damiano. "Now, the devil," says a chronicler,
"very wrath to see such devotion in so many hearts, turned his mind
to finding out some means of sowing seeds of discord. Through his
doing there arose in Assisi a whisper that owing to the rapidly growing
fame of this Crucifix, the ancient one of the cathedral would lose
the veneration in which it had hitherto been held."
Now before placing
the Crucifix of San Damiano in its place over the high altar the monks
settled that it should be carried in solemn procession through Assisi. "But,"
writes the angry chronicler, "those who had joined this diabolical conspiracy
against our Crucifix were not slow to prevent this, and had recourse to the
Inquisitor of Perugia, who was induced to send his vicar to stop the
procession, and bid the monks of San Damiano to keep their Crucifix hidden
and allow no one to see it." There arose a terrible storm in the
troubled community of Assisi, between those who took the part of
the "persecuted Crucifix" and those who sided with the jealous canons
of the cathedral. Finally, the case was placed before the Pope
himself, and all waited anxiously the result of his investigations. A
duplicate of the Crucifix of San Damiano was sent to Rome that it might be
well examined by the Pope and the whole college of cardinals, and they
not finding in the pious Brother Innocenzio's work anything contrary
to the teaching of the gospel, it was unanimously decreed that
the Crucifix of San Damiano might receive all the homage and love of
the friars and citizens. So on a burning Sunday in August solemn high
mass was sung at the altar of St. Clare in San Damiano and, although
the friars were defrauded of their procession, such was the concourse
of people who came to gain the plenary indulgence granted by His
Holiness that the good friars rejoiced, and were comforted for all
the persecution they had suffered on account of this marvellous
Crucifix. What must have been the feelings of Brother Innocenzo as he stood
by the high altar and watched the crowd of worshippers and the
women lifting up their streaming eyes to the crucifix he had fashioned
in his cell? The devotion to it grew as the years passed on, and we
read that a century later the monks were obliged "for their greater
quiet to transfer it from the choir to the chapel," where it now is,
after which the monks could say their office in peace. Now we see
it surrounded with votive offerings, and our guide pours forth
an incessant stream of praise, and recounts at length
numberless miracles.
Through the chapel of the Crucifix we reach the
choir of St. Clare, left as when she used it, with the old worm-eaten stalls
against the wall. It is probable that originally this was part of the house
of the priest who had the keeping of San Damiano before the benedictines
gave it to the Poor Clares; for here is shown the recess in the wall
where St. Francis hid when his father came to seek for him, and where he
is supposed to have lived in hiding for a whole month until the
storm should have blown over. It was for the rebuilding of the chapel
that he had taken bales of costly stuffs from the Bernardone warehouse
in Assisi to sell at the fair of Foligno, and thus called forth the
wrath of Messer Pietro. The good priest of San Damiano was so
much astonished at this sudden conversion of Francis, that thinking
he mocked him he refused to accept the purse of gold, which
Francis finally threw on to a dusty window-sill. But the priest soon
became his friend, allowing him to remain at San Damiano and partake of
such humble fare as he could give, joining him in repairing of the
poor ruined chapel.
An artist of the sixteenth century had sought to
adorn the altar with a fresco of the Crucifixion which was only discovered a
few months ago, but the whitewashed walls and severe simplicity of the rest
seem more in keeping with the place than this crude attempt at
decoration. By a rough flight of stairs we reach the small private oratory of
St. Clare, which communicated with her cell and where, in her latter
days of illness, she was permitted to keep the Blessed Sacrament. The
rest of the convent being strict "clausura," ever since the Marquess
of Ripon bought San Damiano from the Italian Government and gave it
into the keeping of the franciscan friars, can only be seen by men.
Within is the refectory of St. Clare where Innocent IV, dined with her
and witnessed the miracle of the loaves, and Eusebio di San Giorgio
(1507) has painted in the cloister two fine frescoes of the Annunciation
and St. Francis receiving the Stigmata.
But anyone may step out into
the small and charming garden of St. Clare which is on a level with her
oratory. Walls rising on either side leave only a narrow vista of the valley
where Bevagna, and Montefalco on her hill, can just be seen. Within this
small enclosed space the saint is said to have taken her daily exercise and
carefully attended to the flowers, and the friars to this day keep a row
of flowers there in memory of her. It will be well on leaving the
chapel of San Damiano to look at the open chapel in the courtyard
where Tiberio d'Assisi has painted one of his most pleasing
compositions. The Madonna is seated in an Umbrian valley, low lines of hills
fade away in the distance, and franciscan saints, among whom St.
Jerome with his lion seems curiously out of place, surround her, while at
her feet is placed the kneeling figure of the nun who succeeded St.
Clare as abbess. It is signed and dated 1517, while the fresco on
the side-wall of St. Sebastian and St. Roch was painted five years
later. In another corner of the courtyard, near the entrance, is a
painting in a niche of the Madonna and saints by some Umbrian artist who
felt the influence of both Giotto and Simone Martini, so that we have
a curious, if pleasing result.
SANTA CHIARA
St. Clare was
no sooner dead than the people, as they had done with St. Francis, sought to
honour her memory, but in this case, Innocent IV, being in Assisi for the
consecration of the Franciscan Basilica, the funeral service was conducted by
the Pope and cardinals. Such a gathering of church dignitaries, Assisan
nobles, priors and people had certainly never been seen in the humble convent
of San Damiano; their presence, though honouring the saint, filled the hearts
of the nuns with sorrow for they knew they had come to take the body of St.
Clare to Assisi. With tears they consented to its being placed in safety
in San Giorgio, but only on the condition that they might eventually
be allowed to live near her tomb in some humble shelter. San
Damiano without her, alive or dead, meant little to them, and they were
ready to abandon a home of so many memories to go where they and
their successors could guard her body to the end of time. Devotion to
her memory and belief in her sanctity was not solely confined to
them; when the friars rose to intone the service of the dead, Pope
Innocent signified that there should be silence, and to the wonder of
all ordered high mass to be sung and the funeral service to be
changed into one of triumph, in honour of her who he believed was already
with the Virgins in heaven. It was a kind of canonisation, but could not
be regarded as valid without the usual preliminaries being performed,
and the cardinals, more cautious and less enthusiastic than His
Holiness, persuaded him to wait and in the meanwhile allow the ordinary
service to proceed. To this he consented, and then amidst music and
singing the Pope led the people up the hill where years before another
saint had been borne to the same church of San Giorgio, and as on that day
a funeral ceremony became a triumphal procession.
Innocent IV, died
soon after, and it was Alexander IV, who in September 1255, two years after
her death, canonized St. Clare in a Bull replete with magnificent eulogy in
which there is a constant play upon her name: "Clara claris præclara meritis,
magnæ in coelo claritate gloriæ, ac in terra miraculorum sublimum clare
gaudet ... O admiranda Claræ beatæ claritas." Another two years were allowed
to elapse before they began to erect a building to her memory; besides the
readiness shown by every town to honour their saints, the Assisans had
especial cause to remember St. Clare, as she had twice saved them from the
Saracen army of Frederic II. Willingly the magistrates and nobles, besides
many strangers who had heard of the saint's renown, contributed money for the
new building, and Fra Filippo Campello the minorite was chosen as the
architect. Fine as his new work proved to be it was rather the copy of a
masterpiece than the inspiration of a great architect, which makes it more
probable that he was only employed in completing the church of San Francesco
from the designs of that first mysterious architect, and not, as some have
said, its sole builder.
The canons of San Rufino offered the church
and hospital of San Giorgio which belonged to them. A more fitting site for
the church to be raised in honour of St. Clare could not have been chosen,
for it was here that St. Francis had learnt to read and write as a
child under the guidance of the parish priest; here he preached his
first sermon, and later touched the heart of Clare by his words during
the lenten services; and here both of them were laid in their stone
urns until their last resting places were ready. So around the little
old parish church with its many memories, and within sight of the
Scifi palace, arose "as if by magic" the new temple with its tall
and slender campanile. The hospital enlarged and improved became
the convent, and the church was used by the nuns as a choir, the rest
of the large building, which they could only see through iron
gratings, being for the use of the congregation. With its alternate layers
of pink and cream-coloured stone, wheel window and finely modelled
door, the church fits well into its sunny piazza, and is a beautiful
ending to the eastern side of Assisi. But in building it Fra Filippo
forgot the crumbling nature of the soil, and failed to overcome
the difficulty of position as had been done so admirably at San
Francesco, so that in 1351 it became necessary to prop up the sides by
strong flying buttresses, which, while serving as an imposing arched
entrance to the side of the church, sadly detract from the feeling of
solidity of the main building. A darker stone with no rosy tints was used
for the convent, which makes it look very grim and old as it rises out
of a soft and silvery setting of olive trees on the hillside,
with orchards near of peaches and almonds. There is a great charm in
the brown, weather-beaten convent, though a certain sadness when
we remember, in looking at its tiny windows like holes in the wall through
which only narrow vistas of the beautiful valley can be seen, how changed
must be the lives of these cloistered nuns from those of the Poor Ladies of
San Damiano in the time of St. Clare. They are now an order of the orthodox
type, an order given to prayer and not to labour, and seeing no human face
from the outside world except through an iron grating. So early as 1267 their
connection with the franciscan brotherhood ceased; the brethren no longer
heard their confessions or begged for them through the land as St. Francis
had decreed; they lived under the patronage of the Pope, who declared their
convent to be under the especial jurisdiction of the Holy See, and on the
feast of St. Francis called upon the nuns to send a pound of wax candles
in sign of tribute. As the Pope had often in olden times become master
of Assisi so now he obtained the rule over her monastic
institutions, gaining the temporal allegiance of the religious, as he had
gained that of the citizens.
[Illustration: 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 naive 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." |
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