The small Chapel of Saint Mary of the Angels in Porziuncola, which is still intact inside the Basilica, according to tradition was erected by four Holy War veterans who brought back a fragment of Virgin Mary’s tomb, in the valley below Assisi, called Cerreto della Porziuncola. During certain autumn days, the wind clears the sky from all clouds and, blowing through the fronds of the trees, makes a sound that is believed to resemble angels singing. The chapel has been managed by the monks of S. Benedetto al Subasio since the X Century. This place would have probably been forgotten if it wasn’t for Francis and Clare. Thanks to them, today we can see the Porziuncola intact, almost like it was one thousand years ago. But instead of the noisy woods there is a huge Basilica, built between the XVI and XVII Century, that embraces and protects it like a caring mother.
The church was donated to the Saint by the Benedictine monks themselves so the Franciscan Order that was being constituted could have a base. When Francis came here for the first time the church was in a state of abandonment and his hagiography narrates that he spent the whole third year after his conversion to restore the small chapel. Here, when reading the Gospel he realises that his mission was not to renovate crumbling religious buildings, but to renovate and preach God’s Kingdom, living in poverty, penance and simplicity. From here, Francis and his brothers would leave to spread their message and in here they would always return. On one night of 1211, someone knocked at the Porziuncola’s door, it was a desperate and frightened Chiara d’Offreduccio, who had run away from her home and aristocratic family. A few days later, in this chapel, she took her vows and repented to be consecrated to God and began her spiritual journey – which led her to establish the female order of the Poor Clares – and later become Saint Clare.
It is also here where, in 1216, the “Forgiveness of Assisi” was practice for the first time. It was a plenary indulgence ritual that granted immediate absolution upon confession to anyone who entered the church genuinely repenting for their sins. Indulgences were rather frequent within the Christian Church during the Middle Ages but, until then, in order to obtain it it was required to pay a “mite” – a money offering that only the rich could afford – or embark on an extremely long pilgrimage through the most important sites of Christianity such as a Holy City, or again undergo certain corporal mortification practices, like forced abstinence from food or sleeping on a bed of nettles. Francis managed to obtain this extraordinary “waiver” by appearing in person before Pope Honorius III and persuading him of the sanctity of such request. Once back in Assisi, from a pulpit arranged for the occasion in front of the Porziuncola, he gave the glorious announcement to a jubilant crowd of thousands. The “Forgiveness of Assisi” would spark a lot of controversy and opposition within the Church for many centuries to come. The rule was modified many times throughout history. At first it was extended to all Franciscan Churches, then to all the churches of the parish, but it was limited to only two days per year: the 1st and the 2nd of August. In 1988 the Apostolic Penitentiary ruled that in the Porziuncola the indulgence could be received any day of the year, confirming the extraordinary importance this place has for Christianity.
A few steps from the Porziuncola you will find the place where Francis wanted to be taken to spend his last moments and write the final lines to his Canticle of the Sun: the Cappella del Transito. It is in this narrow space that Francis was accompanied to his death, on the night of the third of October 1226. The chapel contains some frescoes painted by an apprentice of Perugino, called the Spagna. Behind the altar there is a magnificent and touching statue of Francis sculpted by Andrea della Robbia, one of the most distinctive ceramists of the Renaissance. In the Chapel is also kept the cord that Francis tied around his habit.
Word of the Forgiveness of Assisi travelled fast all around Italy and Europe and, only a few days after Francis’ announcement, the Porziuncola was already a favourite destination for pilgrims. By the second half of the XVI Century pilgrimages are so frequent that the church is expanded and new reception and accommodation facilities are built. Designed by Galeazzo Alessi, the majestic Papal Basilica of Saint Mary of the Angels, was 126 metres (413 feet) long and 65 metres (213 feet) large and capable of receiving the hundreds of thousands of pilgrims that visited it every year. The project was so ambitious that it took more than a century to be completed.
Unfortunately today we can only see a small portion of the Perugian architect’s original masterpiece. The 1800’s was a very dark century for the Basilica: first the raids perpetrated by Napoleon’s Army, then the violent earthquake of 1832 devastated great part of the building. The dome designed by Alessi collapsed on the Porziuncola, but it was miraculously intact. The restoration works changed the conformation of the church quite drastically. The façade, culminating with the characteristic golden bronze statue of the Virgin Mary, was completed in 1930. The only two remaining parts of the original project are the apsis and the dome, which was rebuilt only 8 years after its collapse. Sitting outside, on the left side of the Basilica: the Fountain of the Twenty-six Cannelle. A fountain extending for nearly the whole length of the side wall built by the Medici family in 1610 as a tribute to Saint Francis. A shield with six embossed spheres stands-out amongst the beautiful decorations adorning the water nozzles. This was the emblem under which the Florentine family was famous in all Europe.
The interior, as opposed to the Basilica of Saint Francis’, is simple and bare, with few decorations, in full observation of the Franciscan Rule. It has three naves with five chapels on each lateral nave, which are the only areas of the Basilica that sport frescoes and decorations, commissioned throughout the years by aristocratic devotees or communal institutions.
The Porziuncola was placed exactly in the middle of the Basilica, as it is the core from which everything else was created. Inside, on the wall behind the altar, there is a table painted by Ilario da Viterbo in 1393 recounting the tales of the Forgiveness of Assisi. The story, that as we know ends with a glorious speech in front of thousands of people, actually begins a few metres from the church, in a rose garden near the Basilica. According to his hagiography, the vision that led Francis to ask the Pope to approve the Indulgence is anticipated by a strong and mysterious temptation that the friar had to face during his prayers. To run from it, he threw himself into the roses, which immediately lost all their thorns. To this day the “Rosa Canina Assisiensis” growing in that part of the monastery are thornless. The beams allegedly forming the pulpit from which Francis announced the Forgiveness, are kept in a chapel near the rose garden and built to celebrate the “thorn miracle”.
Despite not having any particularly famous works of art, the Basilica and Porziuncola provide a unique experience that one can live even only imagining the stories and characters that alternated in these places for over a millennium. From the outside to the inside of the Basilica, with a little bit of imagination, you can picture crowds flocking the Chapel for the celebration of Forgiveness; in the Chapel of Porziuncula you can relive the intimacy of the consecration of Clare, just eighteen, undressed and completely abandoned to God, while Francis is cutting her hair in the feeble light of the trembling flame of oil lamps.
But there is even more to experience at the Museum of Porziuncola. In the museum there are some masterpieces of Christian and Franciscan art, starting from the ancient crucifix of Giunta da Pisano,1236, one of the first depicting the Christ patiens – humanise and suffering – as opposed to the dominant style of the time ‒ as per Greek-Byzantine tradition ‒ of Christ Triumphans glorious and triumphant even during crucifixion. Giunta da Pisano can be considered, together with Cimabue and Giotto, one of the main innovators of Medieval art, one of the first to lay the basis of Renaissance art. Amongst the many works of art and precious objects, the museum’s collection includes two painted tables portraying Saint Francis, whose history once again blends with legend. The fist was by the Maester of Saint Francis – the mysterious brush that also produced many frescoes inside the Basilica of Saint Francis – and it is the oldest images of Francis ever found, dating back to the middle of the XII Century. Initially placed in the Cappella del Transito, it is said that the work was painted on the same plank on which Francis used to lay and where he drew his last breath. The second one is believed to be by Cimabue due to the extraordinary resemblance with the portrait of the Saint that the Florentine Master painted in the lower Basilica of Saint Francis, the most faithful existing portrait of the Saint. Also in this case it is believed that the plank on which the painting was executed used to be the lid of the casket in which Francis’ remains were first deposed. The museum also hosts an exquisite piece by Andrea della Robbia: a reredos of shining transparent terracotta, circa 1475, depicting sacred scenes and stories of the life of Francis, including a scene of Francis receiving his stigmata in the Sanctuary of La Verna. History, art, and spirituality, the ideal recipe for a unique experience.