dream of. Who, for instance, ever remembers the ancient cathedral
of Santa Maria Maggiore, and the Bishop's Palace, where Saint
Francis renounced his earthly heritage; or climbs the hill to
see the cathedral of San Rufino, with its wonderful Romanesque
façade, mystic with strange carvings, and its font in which not
only Francis, but the great Emperor Frederick II., was baptized?
How many people have lingered to look at the little loggia of the
Comacine masters at the foot of one of the stair-streets of Assisi,
which seem to have been created by the imagination of Albrecht
Dürer? Or the sunken loggia of the Monte Frumentario, one of the
most ancient municipal buildings in Assisi, which still carries
on its original business and makes loans of money and seed to the
peasantry, so that they shall not be ruined in the lean years of
agriculture? How many have seen the little Chapel of the Pilgrims,
founded by the Confraternity of St. Anthony in honour of their
saint as a hospice for poor pilgrims, though it is frescoed by
Matteo de Gualdo and Mesastris of Foligno?
[Illustration: A STREET IN ASSISI.]
There are few even who have visited the minor relics of St.
Francis,--the Carcere; the cell in the garden of San Rufino in
which the Miracle of the Fiery Chariot took place; the little
parish church of San Giorgio; and the chapels scattered through the
fields of Umbria in which he worked and prayed.
It is San Francesco which most people come to see; San Francesco,
one of the most inspired Gothic buildings in Italy, made sacrosanct
with the body of Francis, illuminated with all that Tuscany could
yield of art in the far-back thirteenth century. So all those
dreams of poverty and humility which were the moving spirit of the
Early Companions have come to naught. It avails nothing that when
the hand of death lay heavy upon Francis, he yielded up even the
coarse rough robe, his last possession, and but for his hair-shirt
lay naked upon the ground, until a brother covered him with another
garment, given 'as to one who has made himself poor for the love
of God.' Nor does his humility count for anything, for though his
petition to be buried on the Collis Inferni among the criminals
and malefactors was granted, he was not given the humble grave he
sought; and it is probable that Pope Gregory, who changed the name
of the hill from that day to Collis Paradisi, only yielded to the
saint's request because there was no other spot near the city walls
suitable for the huge monument which he and Brother Elias were
preparing to build.
There is a story that the irresponsible Leo, the constant friend
and companion of Francis, whom he so lovingly called 'the little
sheep of God,' broke the porphyry vase for alms and collections
which Brother Elias placed outside the church that all might
contribute to its building. But it needed more than the simple
Leo's protest to stem the flood of innovations which the ambitious
Vicar-General was introducing into the Order. Even in his life-time
St. Francis could not hold it back. Who, knowing the pathetic story
of his home-coming from the East, and his disappointment at seeing
the sumptuous Convent of the Brothers Minor in Bologna, can think
that this splendid basilica does not weigh heavily upon the bones
of the little poor man of Assisi? But it was inevitable. He had
more to combat than the ambitions of individuals; there was the
papacy to reckon with, the luxurious and effete Court of Rome,
which saw well enough the moral of the Rule of Francis, but had no
mind to make a bride of Poverty.
'Provide neither gold nor silver nor brass in your purses, nor
scrip for your journey, neither two coats, neither shoes nor yet
staves. And, as ye go, preach, saying, the Kingdom of Heaven is at
hand.' Thus, literally, did Francis, the splendid Idealist of the
Middle Ages, whose faith in human nature was second only to his
faith in God, follow the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth. Only once
in a hundred ages does such a star arise in the East to illumine
the darkness of the world and oppose the primeval laws of disaster.
We know how much he achieved, what a vista of purity and love
he opened to the thirteenth century, and how signally even this
fervent age failed to respond to the voice of the Herald of God who
preached repentance, and sang the praises of his Maker through the
sunlit fields and gardens of Italy. So that there is much pathos
in this mighty temple on the western rock of Assisi, which is the
mausoleum of all the beautiful impracticable dreams of Francis as
well as the shrine on which devotion, art and wealth have lavished
every resource to make it a worthy resting-place for the Messiah of
the Middle Ages.
It was the hour of sunset when we first climbed up the slope of
Monte Subasio, and Assisi and her great church were rose-red, as
though they glowed with inward fires. We left our vettura at the
city gates, telling the driver to take our luggage to the inn, and
we ourselves turned up the hill to San Francesco. As we approached
it through the long arcades of the lower piazza the great golden
church with its towers and gables, its buttressed sides, its
jewelled windows and gracious portico, and the noble steps which
lead up to the Chiesa Superiore, had something of the eternal
beauty of St. Mark's at Venice.
We passed through a group of the clamorous beggars who besiege the
pilgrim at the door of San Francesco, like a canker at the heart
of a perfect fruit, and plunged into the gloom of the Lower Church.
After the gold splendour of the sunset our eyes could distinguish
little except the royal tombs which line the vestibule, and the
great barrel arches which span the vault. But as we groped our way
through the vast dim nave the world of Giotto, Cimabue and the
Lorenzetti loomed on us through the shadows like a memory. The
walls of chapel and transept were held in the bondage of shadow,
but here and there some sweet familiar face looked down upon us
with its golden halo fired by the last light of day. It was very
dark. Vespers were over. One little lamp hanging in the Cappella
San Martino only emphasised the gloom, but our footsteps were
lighted by a faint glare radiating from the lowest tier of the
altar. We could not imagine whence it came, shining so low in our
path, until we drew near and beheld through the grille a lamp,
suspended below the floor above the tomb of Francis. It was as
though the luminous presence of the saint himself was guiding our
feet through the shadows.
[Illustration: ASSISI: THE LOWER CHURCH OF SAN FRANCESCO.]
I have been many times to see San Francesco since the first night I
climbed Assisi's hill, but I have never passed from the sunlight,
which the little Poor Brother loved so well, into that shadowy
vault without feeling something pulling at my heart-strings, for
there is an atmosphere of sadness in San Francesco. Below all this
splendour Francis is crushed out of thought just as his body is
crushed out of sight by his massive tomb. It is Brother Elias, not
Francis, whom we meet in these dim rich chapels; and the fabric of
the great church and convent is a monument to human frailty rather
than to individual holiness. But it is so completely lovely, so
full of memories, with its unbroken chain of faith and prayer to
link it to the thirteenth century, that I would not have one jot or
tittle of it altered. It is one of the chief gems in Italy's crown
of beauty, an inexhaustible treasure-house.
Every day, although we were living at the other end of Assisi,
our feet wandered down the hillside to San Francesco. Now it
was to hear Mass in the dim Lower Church when clouds of incense
veiled Giotto's canopy of allegories above the High Altar, and the
peasants knelt humbly round the shrine of the little Poor One, who
having nothing gained the whole world. Now to gaze upon the pitiful
relics of the saint housed in the magnificent carved presses of the
sacristy--the fragments of his death-clothes; the original register
of Honorius III.; the Blessing of St. Leo in Francis' handwriting;
and, most touching of all, the rough sandals which Saint Clare made
with her own hands for the beloved Father, when his poor weary
feet, with their sacred wounds, could no longer tread the stony
Umbrian roads. Now we would wander through the chapels spelling out
the frescoes of Martini and the lesser Tuscans, pausing awhile
before the tomb of that forgotten Queen of Cyprus, who is only
remembered for her priceless gift of ultramarine, presented in the
porphyry vase which is still to be seen in the east transept; or by
the shadowy tomb of Madonna Giacobba di Settisoli, the Roman lady
who loved Francis, and ministered to him at the last, bringing him
his shroud and the candles for his burying, and, pitiful and human
touch, the little comfits which had pleased him when he lay sick in
Rome.
Nor did we ever weary of the small cloister of San Francesco with
its faded grey of bricks and mortar, its cypresses and lichens,
and the _stemme_ of the nobles who lie below its pavement. It is a
veritable home of peace. The walls are veiled in hanging creepers;
there is a little box-hedge and a shower of sun-flecked acacias and
lilacs from which the grey trunks of giant cypresses soar like the
columns of a mighty temple. Dragon-flies flash through the warm,
pine-scented air, and in the heart of it there is a crucifix to
turn the thoughts of the brothers to holiness, lest they should
be distracted by the sight of so much beauty, as they walk in the
garden before their Mass.
[Illustration: THE LITTLE CLOISTER IN S. FRANCESCO D'ASSISI.]
And many a golden afternoon did we while away in the beautiful
Gothic Chiesa Superiore, whose walls Giotto has illumined with
the story of St. Francis. It would be hard to find two buildings
in such strong contrast as the Upper and Lower churches of San
Francesco. The Chiesa Inferiore, with its great barrel arches,
its shadows and its dim frescoes, moves the world most, for it is
full of the suggestion of beautiful unseen things; but the Upper
Church has blossomed like the flowers of the field above the tomb
of Francis. It is a miracle of light and spaciousness and colour,
with rich stained windows and soaring arches; and the white cities
of Giotto's frescoes, and the exquisite blues of his many heavens
encircle the walls like a gay ribbon below the faded reds and
yellows of Cimabue.
Here at least we cannot but feel grateful to Brother Elias,
for from the beginning the Franciscans were patrons of the art
of painting, and they were among the first to encourage the
independent school of art as distinct from the work of Byzantium.
Giunto da Pisa clothed the walls of the transept, and Cimabue and
his pupils were called in to complete the decorations of the Upper
Church. Thus it befell that, while Cimabue was painting some of his
masterpieces on the walls above, Giotto, serving his apprenticeship
and working with the other pupils of his Master's atelier,
stretched out his hand to snatch the greater laurel.
'Cimabue thought
To lord it over painting's field; and now
The cry is Giotto's, and his name eclipsed.'[17]
Many years later, when his fame was assured, Giotto came back to
paint his allegories in the place of honour over the High Altar
of the Lower Church. What did he think of it all, I wonder, this
Florentine, this lover of beautiful things, this shepherd who left
his sheep and his poverty and lighted the difficult path of art by
the torch of his genius? Did he too love the memory of Francis? Or
was it beyond his understanding that a man should dream of giving
up all the world to follow a vision of eternal life? Perhaps he
shrugged his shoulders over the whole thing, and painted on, with
little thought for the saint, but all his heart in his ambitions,
and in the beautiful church which he was helping to adorn.
Truly it is a temple of Art this Franciscan Holy of Holies, but
pilgrims who are questing for the gentle spirit of St. Francis
should come away, nor hope to find it in the other great shrine
of Assisi, Santa Chiara, the resting-place of Clare. Santa Chiara
is inside the eastern gate of Assisi, close to the ancient palace
of the Scifi in which the saint was born. It is a bare and
empty church whose frescoes, according to the sacristan, were
white-washed by a seventeenth-century bishop, because so many
strangers came to disturb the nuns! But this Goth, who is said to
have been of German extraction, left untouched some exquisite gold
pictures of virgin saints over the High Altar, nor did he deem
it worth while to destroy the frescoes which cover the walls of
the ancient parish church of San Giorgio. For which we should be
grateful, because half-hidden behind the gaudy trappings of its
altar are two expressive and beautiful pictures of the Madonna and
Saint Clare.
In this humble chapel where they keep the miraculous crucifix of
San Damiano, we seem to draw a little nearer to Francis, who must
have come here often to the old priest who gave him lessons in
his childhood. Later, when the Assisans had begun to listen to
him, he preached here until the press became so great that he was
given permission to deliver his sermons in the then unfinished
cathedral of San Rufino. Here, too, he lay in state while the
people of Assisi wept and gloried over him, just as many years
after they wept and gloried over St. Clare. It would have been a
gentle thought if these two who had prayed and laboured together in
life could have been sheltered by the same roof in death. Madonna
Giacobba, who had the privilege of coming to St. Francis in his
last illness, lies in San Francesco; but Clare, the Poor Lady of
San Damiano, who had so humbly begged that she might once break
bread with Francis, lies on the hillside far away from him.
We went down to see her tomb, the rock-hewn vault in which until
fifty years ago she lay, just as the world had left her seven
centuries before, with sprigs of wild thyme scattered by her
mourning sisters still clinging to her robe. To-day she lies in
a gilt and crystal chest, decked with flowers and jewels and
elaborate velvet cushions. Her strong and rather austere face with
its delicate aquiline nose is outlined against her snowy wimple,
and in the midst of the incongruous splendour of her resting-place
she is clad in the coarse brown robe and black veil of penitence
for which she cast aside the luxurious garments of her youth.
Candles burn at her head and at her feet, and a phantom-like nun
with a lighted taper in her hand glides from behind a veil to
draw the curtains. It was so quiet that suddenly I could hear the
ticking of my watch out of the stillness, as though time tried
to mark the moments in that silent chamber where it had been as
nothing for so long.
But how grotesque the wreath of flowers, the thin halo, the gilded
bed! Why not have left that sunken figure resting on such hard
stones as it chose for comfort in life?
It is only by going out into the highways and hedges as he did
that we can find the real Francis;--in the little convent of San
Damiano, in the Hermitage of the Carcere, that retreat on Monte
Subasio beloved of the early Franciscans, and in the holy places
scattered through the fields of Umbria in which he worked and
prayed.
[Illustration: ASSISI: S. MARIA MADDALENA AT RIVO TORTO]
A faint odour of romance clings round the ancient stones of San
Damiano, for there St. Francis laboured with his own hands to
build a habitation of apostolical simplicity which was to be the
spiritual home of Clare. This humble place, a mere chapel in
the olive-gardens below Assisi, is pregnant with memories of the
simple Francis and the saintly Clare. For it was here, as he knelt
before a crucifix in the little ruined church, that Francis, the
gay merchant-prince of Assisi, heard the voice of Jesus saying,
'Francis, seest thou not that my house is in ruins? Go and restore
it for me.' It was just what he needed, this troubled boy. Here was
an obvious work for his hands, and in the doing of it he might find
relief from the fears and doubtings that had assailed him since
he rose from his weary sick-bed and looked upon an altered world.
With no premonition of his life-work, truly the rock on which the
Catholic Church built up its power when it was in danger of being
swept away in tidal waves of lust and avarice during the stormy
Middle Ages, the ever-literal Francis bethought him of the letter
of his miraculous command.
It is such an old story that it is not worth retelling, how he sold
the bales of cloth from his father's warehouse in the market of
Foligno and brought the money to the priest of San Damiano; how the
good man refused it, being fearful of Pietro Bernardone's wrath;
how Francis flung it into the corner of a little window and would
not touch it either; how his angry father renounced him; and how
St. Francis, having yielded up his earthly goods, begged through
the streets of Assisi for the stones with which to accomplish his
work. There was no more fitting spot in all Umbria to be the home
of the Second Order than San Damiano. But I think that Clare in
her long life within its walls must have often wept, seeing the
rough stones which Francis, with his tender unaccustomed hands, had
fashioned into a house of God and a shelter for the Poor Ladies who
had renounced the world to serve his Master.
I remember well coming upon it one evening, breathless with
sirocco, when all the world was gray and silver. In the little
cloister-garden the flowers were yielding up their fragrance to
the night in perfumed sighs, and in the tiny vaulted chapel two
brothers and a priest were singing vespers with a few peasants who
had wandered in from the fields. A flight of steps led down into
the dark chapel, so little altered from the church which Francis
built. And here I rested. Every moment the shadows below the olives
crept nearer, shutting out the distance. At my feet in San Damiano
the altar lights grew brighter in the dusk, and the swinging censer
glowed like a live coal in the dark choir. So I waited, thinking of
another Clare, in England, who was lying sick unto death, but with
peace in my heart, for it was very sweet to hear Vespers in this
holy place while the curious shadows of night crept up under the
olives. Presently the chanting ceased. The priest went away, and
the peasants passed out into the soft dusk.
I went down then into the silent chapel and saw the relics of Saint
Clare; the little sacristy with ancient wooden seats, such hard
uncomfortable planks, where she and the sisters heard Mass; the
room she died in; the hollow in the wall through which she received
her spiritual food; her yard of garden overlooking the wide Umbrian
plain and Rivo Torto. How often as she stood here upon the convent
roof must she have thought of the Seraphic Father toiling down in
the valley, for I doubt not she loved him, even as Madonna Pica,
his mother, and Giacobba di Settisoli loved him, and hungered over
him, and grieved for his poor weary feet, and exulted in the
purity of his soul.
What memories of Francis and Clare, the true type of the brother
and sister in Christ, are here! Francis indeed came seldom to
the convent after the Poor Ladies were installed, for as he was
not ordained, he had not the right to hear their confessions or
administer the Holy Sacrament. But we know that he often sent to
ask advice of the saintly abbess; and he stayed here before his
journey to Rieti, when he was worn-out and sick, and almost blind,
and took much comfort in her sympathy. Here, too, his body was
brought, so that the sisters might look their last upon it before
it was borne in triumph to Assisi. But Clare, whose cry of grief
still has the power to stir our hearts to pain, lived on through
bitter years to see the ideals of the little lover of Poverty
shattered by Brother Elias and the Papacy before she followed him
up the hill to rest.
The way up to the Carcere is steep and long. The path is a mere
track of broken stones which radiates heat, and there is no shade
to mitigate the pitiless August glare. And yet I would not have
forgone that toil up the side of Subasio, if only for the pleasures
of the way. Assisi lay behind us like a city of the Middle Ages,
with Gothic towers and palaces grouped in échelon below her
fantastic castle. On our right the hillside, veiled in the tender
grey of olives, sloped away to the Valley of Spoleto, which was a
vision of pure beauty, with mists clinging about the banks of its
streams, and its many little cities, Spello, Foligno, Bevagna,
tall Trevi and Spoleto, rising from the green folds of encircling
hills. Above Subasio was barren except for some scanty oaks, but
the bushes by the roadside were heavy with fruit, blackberries,
and shiny red and yellow hips and crimson haws. Out of the parched
stony earth grew clumps of broom, long-stemmed and slender, with
a crest of golden blossoms like a flight of butterflies; and
scabious, white and purple, rosettes for a fairy's shoe; and
little Morning Glories smiling at the sky; and sugamele, and that
wonderful blue thistle, which looks as though it had been soaked,
leaves and all, in the rare dye of mountain mists at dawn.
[Illustration: ASSISI: THE CARCERE.]
We did not see the Carcere until we were actually upon it. It is
completely hidden in a ravine of ilexes, in a fold, as it were, of
the brown skirts of Subasio. Small wonder that the Poverello loved
this place; it is so humble, so silent, so restful. Often and often
while he toiled down in the valley, ministering to the lepers of
Rivo Torto, or preaching to the hard of heart, himself beset with
doubts and fears, he must have lifted his eyes unto the hills, and
longed for the Peace of God, which he knew dwelt in this solitude.
Far away on the spur of the mountain is Assisi, where he laboured
to bring love; and further away still, beyond the peaceful vales
of Umbria, are great cities in which men worked, and hated, and
struggled, ay, and loved unceasingly. But here in this leafy ilex
grove, in these tiny cells and chapels, there is a little world of
dreams and tender memories.
It is so small that a few minutes suffice to see everything--the
courtyard with its miraculous well; the narrow cell and chapel
of St. Francis, which is polished by the feet and shoulders of a
multitude of pilgrims; the hole through which the exasperated devil
vanished when he found that his temptations were of no avail; the
lonely caves of the Early Companions in the hillside. It is a
mere cluster of cells overhanging a mountain torrent; but it has a
peculiar beauty as of a place set apart, dedicate to holiness.
And there is peace in the shadowy ilex wood in which St. Francis
loved to walk, holding converse with his little sisters, the birds.
Myrtle and cyclamens grow among the grey rocks, and the sunlight
flickers across the mossy path. In the silence we could hear the
song of Brother Wind down in the glen, the humming of an insect
near at hand, and, far away, a bird calling to his mate. And all
the time the brother, who walked beside us, prated of the miracles
of the saint. I hardly listened, for like an echo down the years I
seemed to hear Francis, the troubadour of God, singing his canticle
of the sun as he toiled up the barren hillside from Assisi.
'Laudato sia Dio mio Signore
Cum tutte le tue creature,
Specialmente messer lo frate sole,
Il quale giorna et illumina nui per lui,
Et ello è bello et radiante cum grande splendore,
De te Signore porta significatione.'
* * * * *
On a day of never-to-be-forgotten beauty we went down into the
fields below Assisi, and wandered in the footsteps of Francis
and his brother saints. Our way led out of the town by the old
Roman road below the ancient Porta Moiana, and there among the
olives we came upon Gothic farms, tended by beautiful Umbrian
peasants, and many a humble half-forgotten shrine, made holy in
the thirteenth century, and fallen now into disuse. There are many
such places round Assisi, within whose walls Mass is only said once
a year, leaving them for the rest of the days to be store-houses
or granaries or sheds in which to keep the wooden plough of the
country-side.
Everywhere were snow-white butterflies dancing in pairs before
us as we passed, or swinging on the slender flowers that starred
the hedges. White doves bowed and sidled in the golden wheat, and
wayside shrines rose from a tangle of flowers where the cross
roads met. And here, as though it was a custom oft repeated, the
milk-white oxen, which once were deemed a fitting sacrifice for
Roman gods, paused in their rolling gait while their masters laid
down their whips, and doffed their hats and knelt a moment in the
dust before the symbol of the suffering Christ.