On the Sunday at dawn every bell commenced to ring calling the
people to high mass, and never, says a proud chronicler, were so many
bishops and such a crowd seen as upon that day. At the elevation of the
Host the bells pealed forth again announcing the solemn moment to
the neighbouring villages; soon after the procession was formed of
lay confraternities, priests and friars, and little children dressed
as angels strewed the way with flowers. The peasants, with tears
raining down their cheeks, pressed near the coffin, and had to be kept back
by some of the Austrian soldiers then quartered in Assisi. First they went
to the Cathedral, then to San Francesco, "the body of St. Clare thus going to
salute the body of her great master. Oh admirable disposition of God." It was
evening before they returned to the church of Santa Chiara, where the nuns
anxiously awaited them at the entrance of their cloister to place the body of
their foundress in the chapel of San Giorgio until a sanctuary should be
built beneath the high altar. It was soon finished, ornamented with Egyptian
alabaster and Italian marbles, and the body of St. Clare was laid there to
be venerated by the faithful.
As pilgrims stand before a grating in
the dimly lighted crypt the gentle rustle of a nun's dress is heard; slowly
invisible hands draw the curtain aside, and St. Clare is seen lying in a
glass case upon a satin bed, her face clearly outlined against her black and
white veils, whilst her brown habit is drawn in straight folds about
her body. She clasps the book of her Rule in one hand, and in the
other holds a lily with small diamonds shining on the stamens. The
silence is unbroken save for the gentle clicking of the rosary beads
slipping through the fingers of the invisible nun who keeps watch, and as
she lets the curtain down again and blows out the lights there is
a feeling that we have intruded upon the calm sleep of the
"Seraphic Mother."
FOOTNOTES:
[101] As the hated enemies of the
Baglioni the Fiumi are often mentioned in the chronicles of Matarazzo, and
they played an important part in the history of their native city. They were
Counts of Sterpeto, and the village of that name on the hill to the west
of Assisi above the banks of the Chiaggio still belongs to the
family.
[102] One of the first of the franciscans was Rufino, a nephew
of Count Favorino's, whose holiness was such that in speaking of him
to the other brethren St. Francis would call him St.
Rufino.
CHAPTER X
_Other Buildings in the
Town_
The Cathedral of San Rufino. Roman Assisi. The Palazzo
Pubblico. The Chiesa Nuova. S. Paolo. Sta. Maria Maggiore. S. Quirico.
S. Appolinare. S. Pietro. The Confraternities (Chiesa dei
Pellegrini, etc.). The Castle.
Assisi is the only town we know of in
Italy where the interest does not centre round its cathedral and a certain
sadness is felt, which perhaps is not difficult to explain; St. Francis holds
all in his spell now just as he held the people long ago, so that the saints
who first preached Christianity to the Assisans, were martyred and
brought honour to the city, are almost forgotten and their churches
deserted. The citizens, though proud of their Duomo, with its beautiful
brown facade, hardly appear to love it, and we have often thought that
they too feel the sense of gloom and isolation in the small piazza,
which makes it a place ill-fitted to linger in for long. Men come and go
so silently, women fill their pitchers at the fountain but only
the splashing of water is heard, and they quickly disappear down a
street; even the houses have no life, for while the windows are open no
one looks out, and the total absence of flowers gives them a further
look of desolation. This part of the town was already old in
mediæval times, and the far away mystery of an age which has few records
still lives around the cathedral and its bell tower. San Rufino stands
in the very centre of Roman Assisi and its history begins very soon after
the Roman era, one might say was contemporary with it, as the saint whose
name it bears, was martyred in the reign of Diocletian. All the details of
his death, together with the charming legend about the building of the
cathedral, come down to us in a hymn by St. Peter Damian, who, although
writing in 1052 of things which it is true happened long before, had very
likely learnt the traditions about it from the Assisans while he lived in his
mountain hermitage near Gubbio. The story goes back to the time when the
Roman consul of Assisi received orders to stamp out the fast-spreading roots
of Christianity, and began his work by putting to death St. Rufino,
the pastor of the tiny flock. The soldiers hurried the Bishop down to
the river Chiaggio and, after torturing him in horrible fashion, flung
him into the water with a heavy stone round his neck. Some say that
the Emperor Diocletian came in person to see his orders carried out.
That night the Assisan Christians stole down to the valley to rescue
the body of their Bishop and place it in safety within the castle
of Costano, which still stands in the fields close to the river but almost
hidden by the peasant houses built around it. Here, in a marble sarcophagus
he rested, cared for and protected by each succeeding generation of
Christians who had learned from tradition to love his memory, and secretly
they visited the castle in the plain to pray by the tomb of the martyred
saint. Their vigilance continued until the fifth century, when the Christians
had already begun to burn the Pagan temples and build churches of their own.
Christianity, indeed, spread so rapidly throughout Umbria that other towns
cultivated a love for relics, and fearing that the body of St. Rufino might
be stolen from the castle in the open country, the Assisans took the
first opportunity of bringing it within the town. In the year 412
Bishop Basileo, with his clergy and congregation met at Costano, to
seek through prayer some inspiration so that they might know where to
take the body of their saint. As they knelt by his tomb an old man
of venerable aspect suddenly appeared among them, and spoke these words in
the Lord's name: "Take," he said, "two heifers which have not felt the yoke,
and harness them to a car whereon you shall lay the body of St. Rufino.
Follow the road taken by the heifers and where they stop, there, in his
honour shall ye build a church." These words were faithfully obeyed: the
heifers, knowing what they were to do, turned towards Assisi, and brought the
relics, through what is now the Porta S. Pietro, to that portion of the old
town known as the "Good Mother" because the goddess Ceres is said to be
buried there. The heifers then turned slowly round, faced the Bishop and his
people, and refused to move. For some obscure reason the place did not please
the Assisans, and they began to build a church further up the hill; but
every morning they found the walls, which had been erected during
the preceding day, pulled down, until discouraged, they submitted to
the augury, and returned to the spot chosen by the heifers. Before
long, over the tomb of the Roman goddess, arose the first Christian
church of Assisi, dedicated to San Rufino.
[Illustration: CAMPANILE
OF SAN RUFINO]
A few years ago the late Canon Elisei who has written many
interesting pamphlets on the cathedral, obtained permission from the
government to clear away the rubble beneath the present church; masses of
Roman inscriptions and pieces of sculpture were brought to light,
together with part of the primitive church of Bishop Basileo, and the whole
of what is known as the Chiesa Ugonia, from the Bishop of that name
who built it in 1028. With lighted torches the visitor can descend to
the primitive basilica and realise what a peaceful spot had been
chosen for this early place of worship, while picturing the Christians
as they knelt round the body of their Bishop, the light falling dimly upon
them through the narrow Lombard windows. The six columns, with their varied
capitals rising straight from the ground without the support of bases, give a
somewhat funereal aspect, recalling a crypt rather than a church. The few
vestiges of frescoes in the apse--St. Mark and his lion, and St. Costanso,
Bishop of Perugia--are said to be, with the paintings in S. Celso at Verona,
the oldest in Italy after those in the catacombs at Rome. Ruins of other
frescoes, perhaps of the same date, can be traced above the door of the first
basilica, together with some stone-work in low relief of vine leaves and
grapes, but it is difficult to see them without going behind a column built
in total disregard of this lower building. The Roman sarcophagus is
still in the apse where the altar once stood, but open and neglected,
for the body of St. Rufino now lies beneath the altar of the
present cathedral. It is ornamented in rough high relief with the story
of Endymion; Diana steps from her chariot towards the sleeping
shepherd, Pomona has her arms full of fruit and flowers, and there are
nymphs and little gods of love and sleep. "It appeared to us," remarks
one prudish chronicler of the church, "the first time we beheld it,
that it was indecent to have present before the eyes of the faithful
so unseemly a fable; our scruples we however laid aside in
remembering that Holy Church is endowed with the power of purging from
temples, altars and urns, all pagan abominations, and from superstition to
turn them to the true service of God." No such scruples existed during
the early times, and there is an amusing story of how the people
wishing to place the marble sarcophagus, which had been left at Costano
five centuries before, in the Chiesa Ugonia, were prevented by the
Bishop who admired it, and had given orders that it should be brought to
his palace at Sta. Maria Maggiore. A great tumult arose in the town,
but although the people came to blows and the fight was serious on
both sides, no blood was shed. A further miracle took place when
the Bishop, determined to have his way, sent sixty men down to Costano
who were unable to move the sarcophagus which remained as though rooted
in the earth; and the event was the more remarkable as seven
men afterwards brought it at a run up the hill to the church of
San Rufino, where it remains to this day.
Already two basilicas had
been built in honour of the saint, but the Assisans dissatisfied with their
size and magnificence, in the year 1134 called in the most famous architect
of the day, Maestro Giovanni of Gubbio, who before his death in 1210 had all
but completed the present cathedral and campanile. It is a great surprise
when, emerging from the narrow street leading from the Piazza Minerva
thinking to have seen all that is loveliest in Assisi, we suddenly catch
sight of the cathedral and its bell-tower. The rough brown stone which
Maestro Giovanni has so beautifully worked into delicately rounded
columns, cornices, rose-windows and doors with fantastic beasts,
sometimes looks as dark as a capucin's habit, but there are moments in the
late afternoon when all the warmth of the sun's rays sinks into
it, radiating hues of golden orange which as suddenly deepen to dark
brown again as the light dies away behind the Perugian hills.
All
three doors are fine with their quaint ornaments of birds and beasts and
flowers, but upon the central one Giovanni expended all his art. It is framed
in by a double pattern of water-lilies and leaves, of human faces, beasts,
penguins and other birds with a colour in their wings like tarnished gold.
The red marble lions which guard the entrance, with long arched necks and
symmetrical curls, a human figure between their paws, may belong to an even
earlier period, and perhaps were taken by Giovanni da Gubbio from the Chiesa
Ugonia to decorate his facade, together with the etruscan-looking figures of
God the Father, the Virgin and St. Rufino in the lunette above. Just below
the windows a long row of animals, such pre-historic beasts as may
have walked upon Subasio when no man was there to interrupt their
passage, seem to move in endless procession, and look down with faces one
has seen in dreams.
[Illustration: DOOR OF SAN RUFINO]
The
interior of the cathedral is a disappointment; at first we accuse the great
Maestro Giovanni for this painful collection of truncated lines and
inharmonious shapes, until we find how utterly his work was ruined in the
sixteenth century by Galeazzo Alessi of Perugia. To understand what the
church was five centuries before Alessi came, it is necessary to climb the
campanile (only those who are attracted by ricketty ladders and dizzy heights
are advised to make the trial), and when nearly half way up step out on to
Alessi's roof, whence we can view the havoc he has made. But he could not
spoil Giovanni's rose-windows, and through one of them we see the castle on
its green hill and the town below, cut into sections as though we were
looking at the Umbrian world through a kaleidoscope.
The outside of
San Rufino is so lovely that we should be inclined to advise none to enter,
and thus spoil the impression it makes, were it not for the triptych by
Niccolo da Foligno, "the first painter in whom the emotional, now passionate
and violent, now mystic and estatic, temperament of St. Francis' countrymen
was revealed."[103] Here we find a dreamy Madonna with flaxen hair,
surrounded by tiny angels even fairer than herself in crimson and golden
garments folded about their hips. The lunettes above are studded with patches
of jewel-colour, angels spreading their pointed wings upwards as they seem to
be wafted to and fro by a breeze. Four tall and serious saints stand round
the Virgin like columns; to the right St. Peter Damian busily writing in
a book, and St. Marcello, an Assisan martyr of the fourth century
who might pass for a typical Italian priest of the present day. On
the left is St. Rufino in the act of giving his pastoral blessing, and St.
Esuberanzio, another of Assisi's early martyrs, holding a missal. They stand
in a meadow thickly overgrown with flowers drawn with all Niccolo's firm
outline and love of detail. Fine as the picture is, it cannot compare with
the charming predella where the artist has worked with the delicacy of a
miniature painter. It represents the martyrdom of St. Rufino; in the first
small compartment the Roman soldiers on horseback, their lances held high in
the air, followed by a group of prying boys, watch the Bishop's tortures as
the flames shoot up around him; and in the distance are two small hill-towns
with the towers of Costano in the plain. Then follows the scene where two
young Assisan Christians have come down to the Chiaggio to rescue the body of
their saint from the river. He lies stiffly in their arms, attired in
his episcopal vestments, and the water has sucked the long folds of
his cope below its surface. The last represents the procession of
citizens led by Bishop Basileo bringing St. Rufino's body from Costano, and
is one of the most exquisite bits of Umbrian painting. Niccolo has
placed the scene in early morning, the air is keen among the mountains,
the sun has just reached Assisi, seen against the white slopes of
Subasio, and turns its houses to a rosy hue, while the tiny wood in the
plain is still in deepest shadow. The white-robed acolytes mount the hill
in the sunlight followed by the people and the heifers which
ought, Niccolo has forgotten, according to the legend, to have led the
way. The picture is signed Opus Nicholai De Fuligneo MCCCCLX.
The only
other fine things in the cathedral are the stalls of intarsia work of carved
wood, by Giovanni di Pier Giacomo da San Severino (1520), a pupil of the man
who executed the far finer stalls in San Francesco. In the chapel of the
Madonna del Pianto is a curious wooden statue of the Pieta, how old and
whether of the Italian or French school it is difficult to say. A tablet
records that in 1494 because of the great dissensions in the town this
Madonna was seen to weep, for which she has been much honoured, as is shown
by the innumerable ex-votos hung by the faithful round her
altar.
[Illustration: THE DOME AND APSE OF SAN RUFINO FROM THE
CANON'S GARDEN]
The marble statue of St. Francis is by the French
artist, M. Dupre (a replica in bronze stands in the Piazza), while that of
St. Clare is by his daughter, who both generously gave their work to Assisi
in 1882. The statue of St. Rufino is by another Frenchman, M.
Lemoyne.
The proudest possession of San Rufino is the font in which
St. Francis, St. Clare, St. Agnes and Frederick II, were baptised, and
the stone is shown upon which the angel knelt, who in the disguise of
a pilgrim assisted at the baptism of Assisi's saint. Often did
Francis come to San Rufino to preach when the small church of S. Giorgio
could no longer hold the crowds who flocked to hear him, and the hut
where the saint spent his nights in prayer and meditation before he
preached in the cathedral is now a chapel. This was the place of the
miracle when his companions at Rivo-Torto saw him descend towards them in
a chariot of fire (see p. 238). In the time of the saint it was
the cottage of a market-gardener and still stands amidst a vineyard,
one of the prettiest and sunniest spots in the town, where vines,
onions, wild flowers and cherry trees grow in happy confusion, and birds
and peasants sing all day long.
The charm of the Cathedral is best
realised after witnessing one of its many ceremonies, when the canons in
crimson and purple, processions of scarlet clothed boys swinging censers, and
the Bishop seated beneath a canopy of yellow damask his cope drawn stiffly to
the ground by a fussing acolyte, recall some of the magnificence of
the middle ages. The young priests bow low before the Bishop on their
way to the altar, return to their seats and bow again; incense fills
the church; the organ peals half drown the tenor's song, and through
it all, from the stalls, drone the voices of the canons reciting
their office. It is a gorgeous service but without a congregation, for
even the beggars have not stolen in; and Niccolo's Madonna looks out
upon the scene with big soft eyes which seem to follow us into the
darkest corners of the aisles.
ROMAN ASSISI.
Assisi is so
much a place of one idea--of one interest--around which everything has grown,
that it is difficult to remember that a fairly important town existed in
Roman times, and that the Roman buildings, still to be seen are, in the
opinion of Mr Freeman, worth a visit even if the church of San Francesco had
never arisen. Some pleasant hours may be passed finding the sites of pagan
monuments, the remains of ancient walls, and tracing the outline of the
original town. In every case we see how Roman Assisi has, in a very marked
way, become part of Mediæval Assisi, palaces having been erected upon the
foundations of Roman houses and Christian churches upon the sites of ancient
temples. The Temple of Hercules stood at the bend of Via S. Quirico (now
Via Garibaldi) where it turns up to the ancient palace of the Scifi;
while the Porta Mojano, near which old walls and part of an aqueduct can
be seen, took its name from a temple of Janus which stood between it
and the Vescovado. Standing a little off the Piazza Nuova, in a part
of the town known as the "Gorga," are the remains of the amphitheatre.
It would be difficult to find much of the original edifice, but
houses having been built exactly on the ancient site its shape has
been preserved, and this strange medley of old and new was thought
worthy of a doric entrance gate by Galeazzo Alessi. Much the same thing
has happened with many of the castles in the country near Assisi,
where the peasant houses are grouped round them in such a way that only
by penetrating into the midst of a tangled mass of dwellings can
the vestige of a tower be here and there discerned to remind us of
its former state. Assisi, though of no military importance at that
time, aspired to become a little Roman town even more perfect than
her neighbours on the hills. The broad and strongly built drain
which extends from near the Porta Perlici beneath the Piazza Nuova to
the garden behind San Rufino, is said to have been used to carry off
the water from the amphitheatre after the mimic sea-fights which in
Roman times were so popular. A use was found for all things, and in time
of war a Roman drain proved a most efficient means of escape,
especially when the Baglioni were raiding the town and putting to death all
they met upon their road.
Some small remains of a Roman theatre are to
be seen near the cathedral but so buried amidst a wild garden that it is
difficult to form any just idea of its extent. The most splendid piece of
masonry, a Roman cistern, lies beneath the campanile of the cathedral and
can be easily looked into by the light of a torch, the sacristan
even suggests a descent into its dark depths by means of a rickety
ladder. An inscription recording the proud fact that Assisi possessed
an amphitheatre has been removed to the cathedral where it is placed above
the side entrance to the left. Other large portions of Roman walls are to be
found at the back of a shop in the Via Portica and also in the Via San Paolo;
both are marked upon the map. In those days the town seems to have been
identical with what we now call old Assisi, namely the quarter round San
Rufino extending to the portion round San Francescuccio where are noticed the
arched Lombard windows.
But by far the most interesting record of this
early age is the Temple of Minerva, which in spite of the damage done when it
was turned into a church, and the way in which the mediæval buildings are
crowded round it, yet remains one of the most beautiful of ancient
monuments. The raising of the Piazza makes it difficult to realise, without
going below ground, how imposing the temple must have been when its
steps led straight down to the Forum. This can be reached by descending
from the Piazza into the "scavi," or excavations, where stands the
great altar with drains for the blood of the victims; the long
inscription giving the name of the donor of the Temple runs:
GAL.
TETTIENVS PARDALAS ET TETTIENA GALENE TETTRASTILVM SVA PECVNIA FECERVNT, ITEM
SIMVLACRA CASTORIS ET POLLVCIS. MVNICIPIBVS ASISINATIBVS DONO DEDER. ET
DEDICATIONE EPVLVM DECVRIONIBVS SING. XV. SEVIR. XIII. PLEBI X. DEDERVNT.
S.C.L.D.
It is well known that Goethe went to Assisi solely to see the
Temple, and surprised the citizens by going straight down the hill
again without stopping to visit San Francesco. He wished to keep
unimpaired the impression this perfect piece of classical architecture had
made upon his mind, and we cannot refrain from translating his
enthusiastic description of it for these pages.
"From Palladio and
Volkmann I had gathered that a beautiful temple of Minerva, of the time of
Augustus, was still standing and perfectly preserved. Asking a good-looking
youth where Maria della Minerva was, he led me up through the city which
stands on a hill. At length we reached the oldest part of the town, and I
beheld the noble building standing before me, the first complete monument of
ancient days that I had seen. A modest temple as befitted so small a town,
yet so perfect, so finely conceived, that its beauty would strike one
anywhere. But above all its position! Since reading in Vitruvius and Palladio
how cities ought to be built and temples and other public
edifices situated, I have a great respect for these things.... The
temple stands half way up the mountain, just where two hills meet
together, on a piazza which to this day is called the Piazza.... In old
times there were probably no houses opposite to prevent the view.
Abolish them in imagination, and one would look towards the south over a
most fertile land, whilst the sanctuary of Minerva would be visible
from everywhere. Probably the plan of the streets dates from long ago
as they follow the conformation and sinuosities of the mountain.
The temple is not in the centre of the Piazza, but is so placed that
a striking, though fore-shortened, view of it is obtained by the traveller
coming from Rome. Not only should the building itself be drawn but also its
fine position. I could not gaze my full of the facade; how harmonious and
genial is the conception of the artist.... Unwillingly I tore myself away,
and determined to draw the attention of all architects to it so that correct
drawings may be made; for once again have I been convinced that tradition is
untrustworthy. Palladio, on whom I relied, gives us, it is true, a picture of
this temple, but he cannot have seen it, as he actually places pedestals on
the level whereby the columns are thrown up too high, and we have an
ugly Palmyrian monstrosity instead of what is a tranquil, charming
object, satisfying to both the eye and the understanding. It is impossible
to describe the deep impression I received from the contemplation of
this edifice, and it will produce everlasting fruit."[104]
S.
PAOLO[105]
A little off the Piazza della Minerva is the old Benedictine
church dedicated to St. Paolo, erected in 1074, when it probably stood
alone with its monastery and not, as now, wedged in with other
houses. Built in the very heart of Roman Assisi, its foundations rest
upon solid walls of travertine, where a secret passage reaches to
the castle. In this part of the town there are several
underground passages spreading out in various directions, reminding us of
the insecurity of life in the early times when Pagan consuls
persecuted the weaker Christian sect. Just within the doorway of the church,
now alas thickly coated with whitewash, is an ionic column belonging
to some building of importance which must have stood within the Forum. Few
people visit S. Paolo as it is only mentioned in local guide-books, and the
passing stranger is generally told that there is nothing to see which is
borne out by the modesty of its exterior; but no lover of the early Umbrian
school who has the time to spare should fail to step in, if only for a
moment, as on a wall to the left of the entrance is a large fresco by Matteo
da Gualdo. He has signed the date in the corner--1475--though not his name,
but it would be difficult to mistake so characteristic a work of this
delightful painter. The Virgin, tall and stately, is accompanied by St. Lucy,
who holds her eyes upon a dish and is clothed in a richly coloured orange
gown falling in heavy folds about her; on the other side is St. Ansano,
the patron of the Sienese, looking in his elegant green jacket,
trimmed with fur, more like a courtier than a holy martyr. He holds his
lungs in one hand, because he is a patron of people suffering
from consumption, but why we know not, as there was nothing in the way
he met his death in the river Arbia by the order of Diocletian to
explain the presence of this strange symbol. He stands in Matteo's fresco
very daintily by the Madonna's side, pointing her out to the small
donor who is seen kneeling in a doorway. The colour is deep, perhaps
a little crude, and if the figures may seem somewhat stiff and
their draperies angular, all such defects are amply redeemed by the
small angels on the arch above, who composedly gaze down upon the Madonna
as they sing and play to her.
PALAZZO PUBBLICO OR PALAZZO
COMMUNALE
In the beginning of the thirteenth century the civil affairs of
Assisi had assumed such large proportions that it was found impossible
to transact business in unsheltered quarters of the piazza as had hitherto
been done, and the citizens determined to build a Palazzo Pubblico. Other
towns were rising to municipal importance, notably Perugia whose palace for
her priors proved a beautiful example of a gothic building, while Assisi was
directing all efforts to adorn her churches. A house was bought belonging to
the same Benedictine abbot of Mount Subasio, who had given the humble
dwellings to St. Francis, and on its site they erected the present municipal
palace, which was enlarged in 1275 and again in the fifteenth century, but it
always remained a humble building with little pretensions to
fine architecture. Here the priors and the consuls ruled the citizens
in the absence of a despot, while in the palace of the Capitano del Popolo
(now the residence of the Carabinieri), whose tower dates from 1276, the
council of the citizens met to check the tyranny of the governing faction.
These municipal magnates lived upon opposite sides of the Piazza, and acted
as a drag upon each other in civil matters. The many small towns, villages
and castles which were beneath the yoke of Assisi in mediæval times have been
represented by a modern artist in the entrance hall of the Palazzo Pubblico,
and are a happy record of her days of conquest and prosperity, which are duly
remembered by the citizens. There is also a picture by Sermei of St.
Francis blessing Assisi from the plain which, painted in the
sixteenth century, is interesting as a likeness of the town at that time.
There is also a picture of Elias hung upon the wall, intended as a
portrait and not as an object for popular devotion. An effort has been made
to adapt one of the rooms as a gallery of Umbrian art, and a few
frescoes taken from walls and convents and transferred to canvas are
preserved here, giving some idea, notwithstanding their ruined condition, of
the liberal way in which Umbrian artists distributed their work in
every corner of the town. The gateway of S. Giacomo exposed to constant
sun, wind and rain, was yet thought a fitting place for Fiorenzo di
Lorenzo to paint a fresco of a beautiful Madonna. It now looks sadly out
of place in this room of the Municipio with a little paper ticket on
the corner of the canvas marking it as No. 17. The half figures of
angels, No. 23 and No. 24, by Matteo da Gualdo, were taken from
the Confraternity of S. Crispino together with No. 21. From the Chiesa
dei Pellegrini came No. 5, the Madonna and Saints by Ottaviano Nelli
of Gubbio; while No. 6, a Madonna, with angels holding a red
damask curtain behind her, was found at the fountain of Mojano and
is attributed to Tiberio d'Assisi. That mysterious painter
L'Ingegno d'Assisi may be the author of No. 12. Vasari recounts how he
learnt his art in the workshop of Perugino in company with Raphael, and
even helped his master in the Cambio frescoes. His real name was
Andrea Aloisi, the nickname of Ingegno arising from the fact that he
was looked up to by his fellow citizens as a very remarkable man, for
not only could he paint beautiful Madonnas but he was a
distinguished Procurator, Arbitrator, Syndic and Camerlingo Apostolico. But
to try and trace his work is like following a will-o'-the-wisp, for no
sooner do we hear of a fresco by him than it eventually turns out to be
by Fiorenzo di Lorenzo or by Adone Doni, and this fresco in the
Municipio is the only one in Assisi which may be by him. If it is,
Tiberio d'Assisi would seem to have been his master and not
Perugino.
In the same room is a small but interesting painting in fresco
(No. 87), the figure of a winged Mercury, which was excavated a few
years ago in the Casa Rocchi, via Cristofani. In another room is the head
of a saint which some believe to be also of Roman times, but a
good authority attributes it to a late follower of Raphael. The
saint's head is seen against a shadowy blue landscape, and like all
Umbrian things has an indescribable charm, a feeling that the artist loved
the valleys in spring-time, and tried to convey some of the soft colour
of the young corn and budding trees into the picture he was
painting.
THE CHIESA NUOVA
A little below the Piazza della
Minerva is the Chiesa Nuova, built at the expense of Philip III, of Spain in
1615 by the Assisan artist Giorgetti and finished in seven years. Few people
come to Assisi without visiting it, for although containing nothing of
artistic value, it stands upon the site of the Casa Bernardone, and
recalls many incidents of St. Francis' life. The small door is shown
through which Madonna Pica passed when the angel disguised as a pilgrim
told her that her son was to be born in a stable, and we see part of
the cell where St. Francis endured such cruel imprisonment from
his father, until his mother in the absence of Messer Pietro let him
out to return to his haunts at San Damiano and the Carceri.[106]
Other places preserve more of the charm of the saint than the Chiesa
Nuova.
Two buildings in the town are intimately connected with St.
Francis, his father's shop in the Via Portica the entrance of which
the sculptor of St. Bernardino's door at the franciscan convent
has adorned with a beautiful pattern of flowers, shields and cupids;
and the house of Bernard of Quintavalle which is reached from this
street by the Via S. Gregorio. It is now the Palazzo Sbaraglini and has
no doubt been much enlarged since the thirteenth century, but the
little old door above a flight of steps bears the unmistakable stamp of
age; it leads into a long vaulted room, now a chapel, which there
seems every reason to believe was the one where Bernard, the rich
noble, invited St. Francis to stay with him at a time when he doubted
his sanctity. The story is too long to quote and extracts would only
spoil it, but the pilgrim to Assisi should read it as related in
that franciscan testament, the _Fioretti_ (chap. iii.). Popular
devotion has happily not tampered with this corner of the town as it has
with the house of the Bernardone.
[Illustration: CAMPANILE OF STA.
MARIA MAGGIORE]
STA. MARIA MAGGIORE
This romanesque church
stands above a Roman building whose columns and mosaic floor can easily be
seen from the garden behind the apse, and for many centuries it was the
cathedral of Assisi as is testified by its close proximity to the Bishop's
palace. But there is now little to remind us of any pretensions to splendour
which it may once have possessed, only vestiges of the frescoes destroyed by
the great earthquake of 1832 can be seen on its walls, and an Annunciation in
a cupboard of the sacristy--in such strange places do we find an
ancient fresco in Assisi. The church was already an old building in
the twelfth century, for we hear of its being restored and enlarged
after a fire by Giovanni da Gubbio, and finished later by the help of
St. Francis who is said to have rebuilt the apse. One gladly hurries
out of it into the little piazza which, though the humblest looking
in Assisi, is very famous for the scenes it has witnessed. Here
St. Francis renounced the world in the presence of his angry father,
and received protection from Bishop Guido; (see p. 235). Many years
later the dying saint was brought to rest at the Bishop's palace near
the church, and edified those who guarded the gates by singing so gaily
in the midst of terrible suffering. Then again when a quarrel
arose between Guido and the Podesta of Assisi, two friars came up with
a message of peace from St. Francis, then on his deathbed at
the Portiuncula, who had heard with grief of the dissension. The
story, and it is a true one we may be sure, has been faithfully recorded
by Brother Leo, who tells us how "when all were assembled together in
the piazza by the Bishop's palace the two brethren rose up and said:
"The blessed Francis in his illness has composed a canticle to the
Lord concerning His creatures, to the praise of the Lord Himself and
for the edification of the people." It was the verse beginning "Praised
be my Lord for all those who pardon one another for His love's
sake," which he had added to his Hymn to the Sun (see p. 79). All
listened intently to the message which so touched the heart of the Podesta
that he flung himself at the Bishop's feet and promised to make amends
for his offence for the love of Christ and the Blessed Francis. The
Bishop lifting him from the ground spoke words of forgiveness and peace,
and then "with great kindness and love they embraced and kissed
one another.""
[Illustration: EAST FRONT OF SAN
FRANCESCO]
CONVENTS OF S. QUIRICO AND S. APPOLINARE
Every
church and convent wall in Assisi was once adorned by frescoes, and even now,
when time and ill-usage have done their best to ruin them, it is still
possible to come upon delightful specimens of Umbrian art. But they are so
stowed away in out of the way corners that one hardly likes to pass a door,
however poor and uninviting, without glancing in to see what treasure may be
hidden away behind it.
Curiosity was amply rewarded one day while
visiting the convent of S. Quirico which we pass on the way from Sta. Maria
Maggiore to S. Pietro, attracted there by the small fresco of the Virgin and
St. Anne by Matteo da Gualdo over the door. The whitewashed parlour
contained nothing of interest, not even a nun peered through the iron
grating, but a murmur from the attendant about frescoes drew us to a
window where, above the brown-tiled roof under a rough pent ledge, exposed
to rain and wind, was a fresco of Christ rising from the tomb, and
four small angels. It is not perhaps one of Matteo da Gualdo's
most pleasing compositions and might be passed unnoticed in a gallery,
but the thought of the wealth of Umbrian art, when masters left
their paintings over gateways upon city walls, and above a roof where
even the nuns can scarcely see it as they walk in the cloister below,
give it a peculiarly Assisan charm which we cannot easily forget. A
few steps further on, down the Borgo San Pietro, is the large convent
of S. Appolinare, remarkable for its pretty campanile of brick, and
a wheel window above the door. It once possessed many frescoes of
the fourteenth and fifteenth century, but now it is not worth while
to seek admittance for they are much destroyed; some have been
ruthlessly cut in two by lowering the ceiling of the rooms, and only here
and there, where the whitewash has peeled off, faces of Madonnas
and saints look out like ghosts imprisoned in a convent wall.
S.
PIETRO
The church of S. Pietro stands upon a grass piazza surrounded
by mulberry trees, with a broad outlook upon the valley. The central door,
supported by two lions, has a twisted design of water-plants and birds which
formerly were coloured, but now only show here and there traces of green
stalks on a dark red background. A finely carved inscription above it records
that in the year 1218 the cistercian Abbot Rustico built the facade, but its
proud historians believe the church itself to have existed in the second
century, thus claiming for it the honour of being the first church erected in
Assisi. The present building cannot be older than 1253 when it was rebuilt
after a great fire, and consecrated by Innocent IV. The interior is
finely proportioned, and the remains of ancient frescoes discovered upon
the walls show the zeal of the Assisans in making all their churches,
as well as San Francesco, as beautiful as they could.
[Illustration:
CHURCH OF S. PIETRO]
In the small chapel to the left of the high altar
are four stencilled medallions of a hunter with his dogs chasing a stag,
besides symmetrical patterns like those of the nave of the Lower Church of
San Francesco. Over the altar is a signed picture by Matteo da Gualdo
(he was at Assisi in 1458, but the date here is partly effaced), of
a Madonna with a choir of angels, and upon either side St. Peter and
the Assisan martyr St. Vittorino. By standing on the altar steps a
fresco of the Annunciation of the fifteenth century may be seen on the
wall of the sacristy, discovered beneath the usual layer of whitewash
some fifty years ago. The angel's profile, the hair turned back in
waves from the face over the shoulders, is clearly outlined, and shows
pale against the golden light of his wings. But the real treasures of
this church, according to a pious author, are the bones of St.
Vittorino, an Assisan Christian who was the second Bishop of Assisi, and died
a martyr's death in the third century. In 1642 these relics were deposited
in a more suitable marble urn than the one that had contained them before,
during a grand ceremony presided over by a Baglioni, Bishop of Perugia. Other
bones and ashes of some Roman martyrs were afterwards added which were taken
from the cemetery at Rome by the Abbot of San Pietro "to further enrich his
church."
THE CONFRATERNITIES
An enduring mark of St. Francis'
influence is seen in the number of confraternities established in Assisi
which, if they have lost many of their primitive customs, still retain a hold
upon the people and are the great feature of the town. Hardly a day passes
without seeing members either preparing for a service in one of their
chapels, or following a church procession, or carrying the dead along the
cypress walk from Porta S. Giacomo to the cemetery. Clothed in long
grey hooded cloaks, holding lanterns and candles and singing their
mediæval hymns, these citizens of the nineteenth century belong to Assisi
of the past as much as all her frescoes and early buildings. Their
origin goes back to the middle of the thirteenth century when, out of
the great devotional movement due to St. Francis, arose that strange
body of penitents the Flagellants, who are said to have first appeared
in Perugia, and thence spread throughout Italy.[107] "The movement,"
says Dr Creighton, "passed away; but it left its dress as a
distinctive badge to the confraternities of mercy which are familiar to
the traveller in the streets of many cities of Italy." Assisi was
among the first to witness the hordes of fanatics who roamed from town
to town increasing as they passed like a swarm of locusts through
the land, and often at night going forth into the streets clothed in
white garments to dance a dance of the dead, clanging bones together as
they sang. It was inevitable that their passage through Assisi should
have its results, and many brotherhoods were founded; those who had
no chapels of their own met in S. Pietro or S. Maria delle Rose,
where they performed their penances, sometimes, as in the case of
the Battuti (Flagellants), beating themselves as they sang the
wild, love-inspired hymns of Jacopone da Todi, the franciscan poet
of Umbria. Since those days their fervour has taken a more practical form,
and very simple are their services.
[Illustration: CONFRATERNITY OF SAN
FRANCESCUCCIO IN VIA GARIBALDI]
The members of _San Francescuccio_, or
_Delle Stimate_, ever to and fro upon some errand of mercy, belong to the
most important confraternity, and own one of the most picturesque chapels in
the towns. When its doors are open during early Mass or Benediction
the sound of prayer and chanting comes across the quiet road, and in
the blaze of candle-light is seen the great Crucifixion of Ottaviano
Nelli (?) in the lunette of the wall above the altar. At other times,
the chapel being so sunk below the level of the road with no windows
to light it, both fresco and the charming groined roof, blue as that
of San Francesco, can with difficulty be seen. The pent roof
outside overshadows some Umbrian frescoes by Matteo da Gualdo recording
the famous miracle of the roses which flowered for St. Francis in
the snow, and which he offered to the Virgin at the Altar of
the Portiuncula. On the wall to the right are some ruined frescoes
in terra-verde by a scholar of Matteo.
Another confraternity in this
street is _San Crispino_, which once possessed a picture by Niccolo Alunno,
but that has long since disappeared, and only faint patches of colour remain
above its gateway. There are many other confraternities, but as they do not
all possess pictures of interest, we only mention three others; and
first of these, the _Oratory of St. Anthony the Abbot_, or _Chiesa
dei Pellegrini_, which every visitor to Assisi ought to visit.[108]
After the Church of San Francesco it is by far the most important sight
of the town; a Lombard facade, a Roman temple, or a mediæval
castle, delightful and beautiful as they are, may be seen elsewhere, but
we know nothing with such individual charm as the little chapel of
St. Anthony, in the Via Superba. So often a hundred vicissitudes
arrested the adornment of a building during those troubled times of the
middle ages, but here we find a small and perfectly proportioned
oratory decorated with frescoes upon the ceiling and upon every wall, by
two Umbrian masters who have sought to make it a complete and
perfect sanctuary of Umbrian art.
Built in 1431 by the piety of the
brotherhood of St. Anthony the Abbot, it served as a private chapel to the
adjoining hospital, where pilgrims coming to pray at the shrine of St.
Francis found food and shelter for three days. The liberal donations given by
Guidantonio, Duke of Urbino and sometime Lord of Assisi, whose devotion to
the saint was great, may have enabled the confraternity to adorn it
with its many frescoes. Outside, in the arched niche above the door,
are the patrons of the chapel, St. Anthony and St. James of
Campostello, that great saint of pilgrims, with a frieze of small angels
above them playing upon various instruments, also by Matteo da Gualdo. To him
we owe the fair Madonna over the altar who gazes so dreamily before
her, and sits so straight upon her throne. Angels gather round
bending towards their instruments with earnest faces; Matteo's angels
can never only calmly pray, they must sing or else play on
tambourines, viole d'amore, cymbals and organs. Less pleasing are the large
figures of St. James and St. Anthony, while in contrast to them are
the slender winged figures on either side bearing tall candelabra,
and moving forward with such stately step, their white garments
sweeping in long folds behind them, their fair curls just ruffled by the
air. Surely Matteo must have been thinking of a group of babies at play
in the cornfields, or under the hedges near his own Umbrian town, when
he painted that frieze of laughing children, with little caps fitting
so closely round their heads, who are tossing the branches of red
and white roses up into the air. Each one is different, and all are
full of graceful movement. They divide the frescoes below from that of
the Annunciation, which recalls the manner of Boccatis da Camerino,
the master of Matteo. He paints a swallow, the bird of returning
spring, perched outside the Virgin's bedroom, to symbolise the promise
of redemption, and a lion cub meant to represent the lion of Judah
walks leisurely towards the Madonna.
Matteo da Gualdo, as the
inscription tells, worked here in 1468, and Pier Antonio da Foligno, known as
Mezzastris, came in 1482 to paint the rest of the chapel, and upon the right
wall he related the most famous of St. James' miracles in a naive and
delightful manner. The legends tell how in the time of Pope Calixtus II, a
certain German with his wife and son on their way to the saint's Spanish
shrine of Campostello lodged at Tolosa, where their host's daughter fell in
love with the fair young German. But he, being a cautious youth,
resisted every advance of the Spanish maiden, who sought to avenge herself
by hiding a silver drinking cup belonging to her father in his wallet. The
theft was discovered, and the judge of Tolosa condemned the young pilgrim to
be hanged. Pier Antonio has painted the scene when the father and mother,
after visiting Campostello, return to take a last look at the place where
their son was executed and find him well: "O my mother! O my father!" he
says, "do not lament for me, as I have never been in better cheer, the
blessed Apostle James is at my side, sustaining me and filling me with
celestial joy and comfort." In the fresco near the altar the story is
continued; the judge, stout and imposing as one of Benozzo Gozzoli's
Florentine merchants, is seated at a table in crimson and ermine robes
surrounded by his friends, when the pilgrim and his wife arrive and beg him
to release their son. Somewhat bored at being interrupted at his banquet he
mocks them, saying: "What meanest thou, good woman? Thou art beside thyself.
If thy son lives so do these fowls before me." No sooner had he
spoken than, to the astonishment of all, the cock and hen stood up on
the dish and the cock began to crow, as we see in Mezzastris' fresco.
On the opposite wall are miracles of St. Anthony. In the fresco near
the door he is sitting in the porch of the church surrounded by
his companion hermits; they are watching the arrival of camels which,
in answer to the saint's prayer, have brought a supply of food
neatly corded on their backs. The artist has pictured the desert with
sandy mountains, little flowers growing in the burning sand and thick
grass in the wood by the convent. In the second fresco St. Anthony,
beneath a portico of lapis lazzuli and green serpentine, is distributing
the food brought by the friendly camels, to the beggars, who appear
as suddenly upon the scene as the beggars do in an Assisan street.
The
four figures in the ceiling, Pope Leo III, St. Bonaventure, St. Isidor of
Seville and St. Augustine, and the angels with shield-shaped wings, are also
by Mezzastris. A graceful piece of his work is the Christ above the door, in
a glory of angels who form a wreath around Him with their wings like sheaves
of yellow wheat. Delightful, but very different from Matteo's, are the
cupid-angels flying across the sky on clouds, and the two seated playing with a
shield upon which is painted the pilgrim's scallop-shell. |
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