The Story of Assisi 11

The Story of Assisi 11

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.