Some eight miles away down the valley, enclosed above a coil of Arno,
stands Bibbiena, just a little Tuscan hill city with a windy towered
Piazza in which a great fountain plays, and all about the tall cypresses
tower in the sun among the vineyards and the corn. Here Cardinal
Bibbiena, the greatest ornament of the court of Urbino, was born, of no
famous family, but of the Divizi. It is not, however, any memory of so
famous and splendid a person that haunts you in these stony streets, but
the remembrance rather of a greater if humbler humanist, St. Francis of
Assisi. You may see work of the della Robbia in the Franciscan church of
S. Lorenzo in the little city, but it is La Verna which to-day
overshadows Bibbiena, La Verna where St. Francis nearly seven hundred
years ago received the Stigmata from Our Lord, and whence he was carried
down to Assisi to die. The way thither is difficult but beautiful: you
climb quite into the mountains, and there in a lonely and stony place
rises the strange rock, set with cypress and with fir, backed by
marvellous great hills.
"Mons in quo beneplacitum est Deo habitare in eo."
It was on the morning of the 14th September 1224, in the Feast of the
Exaltation of the Holy Cross, that Francesco Bernadone received the
Stigmata of Christ's passion while keeping the Lent of St. Michael
Archangel on this strange and beautiful mountain. "Ye must needs know,"
says the author of the _Fioretti_, "that St. Francis, being forty and
three years of age in the year 1224, being inspired of God, set out from
the valley of Spoleto for to go into Romagna with brother Leo his
companion: and as they went they passed by the foot of the castle of
Montefeltro; in the which castle there was at that time a great company
of gentlefolk.... Among them a wealthy gentleman of Tuscany, by name
Orlando da Chiusi of Casentino, who by reason of the marvellous things
which he had heard of St. Francis, bore him great devotion and felt an
exceeding strong desire to see him and to hear him preach. Coming to the
castle St. Francis entered in and came to the courtyard, where all that
great company of gentlefolk was gathered together, and in fervour of
spirit stood up upon a parapet and began to preach.... And Orlando,
touched in the heart by God through the marvellous preaching of St.
Francis ... drew him aside and said, 'O Father, I would converse with
thee touching the salvation of my soul.' Replied St. Francis: 'It
pleaseth me right well; but go this morning and do honour to thy friends
who have called thee to the feast, and dine with them, and after we will
speak together as much as thou wilt.' So Orlando got him to the dinner;
and after he returned to St. Francis and ... set him forth fully the
state of his soul. And at the end this Orlando said to St. Francis, 'I
have in Tuscany a mountain most proper for devotion, the which is called
the Mount La Verna, and is very lonely and right well fitted for whoso
may wish to do penance in a place remote from man, or whoso may desire
to live a solitary life; if it should please thee, right willingly would
I give it to thee and thy companions for the salvation of my soul.' St.
Francis hearing this liberal offer of the thing that he so much desired,
rejoiced with exceeding great joy; and praising and giving thanks first
to God and then to Orlando, he spake thus: 'Orlando, when you have
returned to your house, I will send you certain of my companions, and
you shall show them that mountain; and if it shall seem to them well
fitted for prayer and penitence, I accept your loving offer even now.'
So Orlando returned to Chiusi, the which was but a mile distant from La
Verna.
"Whenas St. Francis had returned to St. Mary of the Angels, he sent one
of his companions to the said Orlando ... who, desiring to show them the
Mount of La Verna, sent with them full fifty men-at-arms to defend them
from the wild beasts of the forest; and thus accompanied, these brothers
climbed up the mountain and searched diligently, and at last they came
to a part of the mountain that was well fitted for devotion and
contemplation, for in that part there was some level ground, and this
place they chose out for them and for St. Francis to dwell therein; and
with the help of the men-at-arms that bore them company, they made a
little cell of branches of trees; and so they accepted, in the name of
God, and took possession of, the Mount of La Verna, and of the
dwelling-place of the brothers on the mountain, and departed and
returned to St. Francis. And when they were come unto him, they told him
how, and in what manner, they had taken a place on the mountain ... and,
hearing these tidings, St. Francis was right glad, and praising and
giving thanks to God, he spake to these brothers with joyful
countenance, and said, 'My sons, our forty days' fast of St. Michael the
Archangel draweth near: I firmly believe that it is the will of God that
we keep this fast on the Mount of Alvernia, which, by divine decree,
hath been made ready for us to the end, that to the honour and glory of
God, and of His mother, the glorious Virgin Mary, and of the holy
Angels, we may, through penance, merit at the hands of Christ the
consolation of consecrating this blessed mountain.' Thus saying, St.
Francis took with him Brother Masseo da Marignano of Assisi ... and
Brother Angelo Tancredi da Rieti, the which was a man of very gentle
birth, and in the world had been a knight; and Brother Leo, a man of
exceeding great simplicity and purity, for the which cause St. Francis
loved him much. So they set out. 'And on the first night they came to a
house of the brothers, and lodged there. On the second night, by reason
of the bad weather, and because they were tired, not being able to reach
any house of the brothers, or any walled town or village, when the night
overtook them and bad weather, they took refuge in a deserted and
dismantled church, and there laid them down to rest.' But St. Francis
spent the night in prayer. 'And in the morning his companions, being
aware that, through the fatigues of the night which he had passed
without sleep, St. Francis was much weakened in body and could but ill
go on his way afoot, went to a poor peasant of these parts, and begged
him, for the love of God, to lend his ass for Brother Francis, their
Father, that could not go afoot. Hearing them make mention of Brother
Francis, he asked them: 'Are ye of the brethren of the brother of
Assisi, of whom so much good is spoken?' The brothers answered 'Yes,'
and that in very truth it was for him that they asked for the sumpter
beast. Then the good man, with great diligence and devotion, made ready
the ass and brought it to St. Francis, and with great reverence let him
mount thereon, and they went on their way, and he with them behind his
ass. And when they had gone on a little way, the peasant said to St.
Francis, 'Tell me, art thou Brother Francis of Assisi?' Replied St.
Francis, 'Yes.' 'Try, then,' said the peasant, 'to be as good as thou
art by all folk held to be, seeing that many have great faith in thee;
and therefore I admonish thee, that in thee there be naught save what
men hope to find therein.' Hearing these words, St. Francis thought no
scorn to be admonished by a peasant, and said not within himself, 'What
beast is this doth admonish me?' as many would say nowadays that wear
the habit, but straightway threw himself from off the ass upon the
ground, and kneeled down before him and kissed his feet, and then humbly
thanked him for that he had deigned thus lovingly to admonish him. Then
the peasant, together with the companions of St. Francis, with great
devotion lifted him from the ground and set him on the ass again, and
they went on their way.... As they drew near to the foot of the rock of
Alvernia itself, it pleased St. Francis to rest a little under the oak
that was by the way, and is there to this day; and as he stood under it,
St. Francis began to take note of the situation of the place and the
country around. And as he was thus gazing, lo! there came a great
multitude of birds from divers parts, the which, with singing and
flapping of their wings, all showed joy and gladness exceeding great,
and came about St. Francis in such fashion, some settled on his head,
some on his shoulders, and some on his arms, some in his lap and some
round his feet. When his companions and the peasant marvelled, beholding
this, St. Francis, all joyful in spirit, spake thus unto them: 'I
believe, brethren most dear, that it is pleasing unto Our Lord Jesus
Christ that we should dwell in this lonely mountain, seeing that our
little sisters and brothers, the birds, show such joy at our coming.' So
they went on their way and came to the place the companions had first
chosen."
It is not in any other words than those of the writer of the _Fioretti_
that we should care to read of that journey.
"Arrived there not long after, Orlando and his company came to visit
Francis, bringing with them bread and wine and other victuals; and St.
Francis met him gladly and gave him thanks for the holy mountain. Then
Orlando built a little cell there, and that done, 'as it was drawing
near to evening and it was time for them to depart, St. Francis preached
unto them a little before they took leave of him.' Ah, what would we not
give just for a moment to hear his voice in that place to-day? There, in
this very spot, angels visited him, which said, when he, thinking upon
his death, wondered what would become of 'Thy poor little family' after
his death, 'I tell thee, in the name of God, that the profession of the
Order will never fail until the Day of Judgment, and there will be no
sinner so great as not to find mercy with God if, with his whole heart,
he love thine Order.'
"Thereafter, as the Feast of the Assumption of Our Lady drew near, St.
Francis sought how he might find a place more solitary and secret,
wherein he might the more solitary keep the forty days' fast of St.
Michael the Archangel, which beginneth with the said Feast of the
Assumption.... And as they searched, they found, on the side of the
mountain that looks towards the south, a lonely place, and very proper
for his purpose; but they could not win there because in front there was
a horrid and fearful cleft in a huge rock; wherefore with great pains
they laid a piece of wood over it as a bridge, and got across to the
other side. Then St. Francis sent for the other brothers and told them
how he was minded to keep the forty days' fast of St. Michael in that
lonely place; and therefore he besought them to make him a little cell
there, so that no cry of his could be heard of them. And when the cell
was made, St. Francis said to them: 'Go ye to your own place and leave
me here alone, for, with the help of God, I am minded to keep the fast
here without disturbance or distraction, and therefore let none of you
come unto me, nor suffer any lay folk to come to me. But Brother Leo,
thou alone shalt come to me once a day with a little bread and water,
and at night once again at the hour of Matins; and then shalt thou come
to me in silence, and when thou art at the bridgehead thou shalt say:
"Domine, labia mea operies," and if I answer thee, cross over and come
to the cell, and we will say Matins together; and if I answer thee not,
then depart straightway.' And so it was. But there came a morning when
St. Francis made him no answer, and, contrary to St. Francis's desire,
but with the very best of intentions, dear little brother Leo crossed
the bridge over the chasm, which you may see to this day, and entered
into St. Francis's cell. There he found him in ecstasy, saying, 'Who art
Thou, O most sweet, my God? What am I, most vile worm, and Thine
unprofitable servant?' Again and again brother Leo heard him repeat
these words, and wondering thereat, he lifted his eyes to the sky, and
saw there among the stars, for it was dark, a torch of flame very
beautiful and bright, which, coming down from the sky, rested on St.
Francis's head. So, thinking himself unworthy to behold so sweet a
vision, he softly turned away for to go to his cell again. And as he
was going softly, deeming himself unseen, St. Francis was aware of him
by the rustling of the leaves under his feet. Surely, even to the most
doubtful, that sound of the rustling leaves must bring conviction. Then
St. Francis explains to brother Leo all that this might mean.
"And as he thus continued a long time in prayer, he came to know that
God would hear him, and that so far as was possible for the mere
creature, so far would it be granted him to feel the things
aforesaid.... And as he was thus set on fire in his contemplation on
that same morn, he saw descend from heaven a Seraph with six wings
resplendent and aflame, and as with swift flight the Seraph drew nigh
unto St. Francis so that he could discern him, he clearly saw that he
bore in him the image of a man crucified; and his wings were in such
guise displayed that two wings were spread above his head, and two were
spread out to fly, and other two covered all his body. Seeing this, St.
Francis was sore adread, and was filled at once with joy and grief and
marvel. He felt glad at the gracious look of Christ, who appeared to him
so lovingly, and gazed on him so graciously; but, on the other hand,
seeing Him crucified upon the cross, he felt immeasurable grief for
pity's sake.... Then the whole mount of Alvernia appeared as though it
burned with bright shining flames that lit up all the mountains and
valleys round as though it had been the sun upon the earth; whereby the
shepherds that were keeping watch in these parts, seeing the mountains
aflame, and so great a light around, had exceeding great fear, according
as they afterwards told unto the brothers, declaring that this flame
rested upon the mount of Alvernia for the space of an hour and more. In
like manner at the bright shining of this light, which through the
windows lit up the hostels of the country round, certain muleteers that
were going into Romagna arose, believing that the day had dawned, and
saddled and laded their beasts; and going on their way, they saw the
said light die out and the material sun arise. In the seraphic vision,
Christ, the which appeared to him, spake to St. Francis certain high
and secret things, the which St. Francis in his lifetime desired not to
reveal to any man; but after his life was done he did reveal them, as it
set forth below; and the words were these: 'Knowest thou,' said Christ,
'what it is that I have done unto thee? I have given thee the Stigmata
that are the signs of My Passion, to the end that thou mayest be My
standard-bearer. And even as in the day of My death I descended into
hell and brought out thence all souls that I found there by reason of
these My Stigmata: even so do I grant to thee that every year on the day
of thy death thou shalt go to Purgatory, and in virtue of thy Stigmata
shalt bring out thence all the souls of thy three Orders,--to wit,
Minors, Sisters, Continents,--and likewise others that shall have had a
great devotion for thee, and shalt lead them unto the glory of Paradise,
to the end that thou mayest be confirmed to Me in death as thou art in
life.' Then this marvellous image vanished away, and left in the heart
of St. Francis a burning ardour and flame of love divine, and in his
flesh a marvellous image and copy of the Passion of Christ. For
straightway in the hands and feet of St. Francis began to appear the
marks of the nails in such wise as he had seen them in the body of Jesus
Christ the crucified, the which had shown Himself to him in the likeness
of a Seraph; and thus his hands and feet appeared to be pierced through
the middle with nails, and the heads of them were in the palms of his
hands and the soles of his feet outside the flesh, and their points came
out in the back of his hands and of his feet, so that they seemed bent
back and rivetted in such a fashion that under the bend and rivetting
which all stood out above the flesh might easily be put a finger of the
hand as a ring; and the heads of the nails were round and black.
Likewise in the right side appeared the image of a wound made by a
lance, unhealed, and red and bleeding, the which afterwards oftentimes
dropped blood from the sacred breast of St. Francis, and stained with
blood his tunic and his hose. Wherefore his companions, before they knew
it of his own lips, perceiving nevertheless that he uncovered not his
hands and feet, and that he could not put the soles of his feet to the
ground ... knew of a surety that in his hands and feet, and likewise in
his side, he bore the express image and similitude of Our Lord Jesus
Christ crucified." On the day after the feast of St. Michael, St.
Francis left La Verna never to return.
* * * * *
It was with a certain hesitation that I first came to La Verna, as
though something divine that was hidden in the life of the Apostle of
Humanity might be lost for me in the mere realism of his sacred places.
But it was not so. In Italy, it might seem even to-day, St. Francis is
not a stranger, and, in fact, I had got no farther than the Cappella
degli Uccelli before I seemed to understand everything, and in a place
so lonely as this to have found again, yes, that Jesus whom I had lost
in the city.
On a high precipitous rock on the top of the mountain you come to the
convent itself, through a great court, il Quadrante, under a low
gateway. The buildings are of the end of the fifteenth century, simple,
and with a certain country beauty about them, strong and engaging. In
the dim corridors the friars pass you on their way to church at all
hours of the day, smiling faintly at you, whom they, in their simple
way, receive without question as a friend. It is for St. Francis you
have come: it is enough. You pass into the Cappella della Maddalena,
where the angel appeared to S. Francesco promising such great things,
and it is with a certain confidence you remind yourself, yes, it is
true, the Order still lives, here men still speak S. Francesco's name
and pray to God. And there, as it is said, Jesus Himself spoke with him,
and he wrote the blessing for Frate Leone. Then you enter the Chiesina,
the first little church of the Mountain that St. Francis may have built
with his own hands, and that S. Bonaventura certainly enlarged; and thus
into the great Church of S. Maria Assunta, built in 1348 by the Conte di
Pietramala, with its beautiful della Robbias. Coming out again, you
pass along the covered way into the Cappella della Stigmata, built in
1263 by the Conte Simone da Battifolle, where behind the high altar is
the great Crucifixion by one of the della Robbia. Next to this chapel is
the Cappella della Croce, where of old the cell stood in which St.
Francis kept the Lent of St. Michael. Close by are the Oratories of S.
Antonio di Padua and S. Bonaventura, where they prayed and worked. Below
the Chapel of the Stigmata is the Sasso Spicco, whence the devil hurled
one of the brethren. For during that Lent, "Francis leaving his cell one
day in fervour of spirit, and going aside a little to pray in a hollow
of the rock, from which down to the ground is an exceeding deep descent
and a horrible and fearful precipice, suddenly the devil came in
terrible shape, with a tempest and exceeding loud roar, and struck at
him for to push him down thence. St. Francis, not having where to flee,
and not being able to endure the grim aspect of the demon, he turned him
quickly with hands and face and all his body pressed to the rock,
commending himself to God and groping with his hands, if perchance he
might find aught to cling to. But as it pleased God, who suffereth not
His servants to be tempted above that they are able to bear, suddenly by
a miracle the rock to which he clung hollowed itself out in fashion as
the shape of his body.... But that which the demon could not do then
unto St. Francis ... he did a good while after the death of St. Francis
unto one of his dear and pious brothers, who was setting in order some
pieces of wood in the self-same place, to the end that it might be
possible to cross there without peril, out of devotion to St. Francis
and the miracle that was wrought there. On a day the demon pushed him,
while he had on his head a great log that he wished to set there, and
made him fall down thence with the log upon his head. But God, that had
preserved and delivered St. Francis from falling, through his merits
delivered and preserved his pious brother from the peril of his fall;
for the brother, as he fell, with exceeding great devotion commanded
himself in a loud voice to St. Francis, and straightway he appeared
unto him, and, catching him, set him down upon the rocks without
suffering him to feel a shock or any hurt." Can it have been this "pious
brother" who wrote the _Fioretti_? Everywhere you go in La Verna you
feel that S. Francesco has been before you; and where there is no
tradition to help you, surely you will make one for yourself. Can he who
loved everything that had life have failed to love, too, that world he
saw from La Penna--
"Nel crudo sasso, intra Tevere ed Amo"
--Casentino and its woods and streams, Val d'Arno, Val di Tevere, the
hills of Perugia, the valleys of Umbria, the lean, wolfish country of
the Marche, the rugged mountains of Romagna. There, on the summit of La
Verna, you look down on the broken fortresses of countless wars, the
passes through which army after army, company upon company, has marched
to victory or fled in defeat; every hill-top seems to bear some ruined
Rocca, every valley to be a forgotten battlefield, every stream has run
red with blood. All is forgotten, all is over, all is done with. The
victories led to nothing; the defeats are out of mind. In the midst of
the battle the peasant went on ploughing his field; somewhere not far
away the girls gathered the grapes. All this violence was of no account;
it achieved nothing, and every victory was but the tombstone of an idea.
Here, on La Verna, is the only fortress that is yet living in all
Tuscany of that time so long ago. It is a fortress of love. The man who
built it had flung away his dagger, and already his sword rusted in its
scabbard in that little house in Assisi; he conquered the world by love.
His was the irresistible and lovely force, the immortal, indestructible
confidence of the Idea, the Idea which cannot die. If he prayed in
Latin, he wrote the first verses of Italian poetry. Out of his tomb grew
the rose of the Renaissance, and filled the world with its sweetness. He
was the son of a burgess in Assisi, and is now the greatest saint in our
heaven. With the sun he loved his name has shone round the world, and
there is no land so far off that it has not heard it. And we, who loot
upon the ruined castles of the Conti Guidi, are here because of him, and
speak with his brothers as we gaze.