THE WAY TO ASSISI
We had for years desired to make a pilgrimage to Assisi, and now,
across the lovely valley the sight of the little white town clinging
to Monte Subasio, veiled by grey and purple vapour, was a daily
reminder of our wish. Some places stamp themselves into the heart, and
while life lasts the longing to revisit them increases, till
realisation quenches desire. A visit to such a haunt of delightful
memories as Assisi requires time, so we waited till a few days could
be spared.
[Illustration: GIOTTO.]
It was very early morning when we drove down from Perugia along the
Assisi road, a road bordered by the silver and gold of olive-groves
and vineyards. Fragrant, dewy freshness lay on everything; even when
the sun rose higher, and blazed fiercely down on us, we had become so
absorbed by the surrounding scenery and its associations that we did
not seem to feel the brilliant heat.
Now and then, between the leafy trees on our right, we had glimpses of
yellow Tiber on its way to Rome. Francis Bernardone must also have
enjoyed these glimpses as he walked to and from Assisi with some
favourite disciple, perhaps along this very road.
St. Francis did a far greater work for his contemporaries than any
reformer of the later Renaissance period. He did not attack popes and
bishops, or find fault with everything and everybody who differed from
his special ideas: he used the most powerful means by which to
influence mankind,--he lived the life he preached. He had been
accustomed to luxury and every form of self-pleasing,--he gave up all
to follow the way of the Cross, from love to his Saviour. In that
brutal and licentious age, the beginning of the thirteenth century,
his example seems to have been irresistible. The life of poverty,
obedience, and chastity enjoined by his rule sounded utter folly
when first proclaimed to the multitude; but it says something in
favour of those times that, when the first outcry ceased, and his
fellow-citizens witnessed the harmony that existed between his life
and his teaching, he was left comparatively unmolested, and his work
was not materially interfered with. Though he died at forty-four, he
lived long enough to see his Order recognised by Holy Church and by
secular potentates, and to know that its widely spread communities
were firmly established wherever they had planted themselves.
It may be said of St. Bernard and St. Dominick, that they also
practised all they preached, but one feature peculiar to St. Francis
is not chronicled of those other revivalists,--his idea of life was a
very happy one. In the century that followed, Boccaccio did not teach
joy as a duty one whit more strenuously than the Poverello did,
although the two men's ideas of the source of joy were so opposite.
One remembers the recorded talk about joy, of that which fails to
make, and of that which _is_ the true root of happiness, between
Francis and Fra Leone,--a talk which continued for two miles, while
the master and his disciple walked out from Perugia to Assisi.
At last Fra Leo, called by Francis "the little sheep of God," cried
out: "Father, tell me, I pray thee, wherein can perfect happiness be
found?"
Whereupon Francis made his well-known answer, recorded in the eighth
chapter of _I Fioretti_ ("The Little Flowers of St. Francis").
As we drove along we remembered that the hills looking down on us, now
varied by exquisite cloud-shadows, had listened to cheerful lays,
improvised in the Provençal tongue by Francis as he trudged along this
road. He did not have his hymns rendered into Italian verse, so that
they might be understood by the people, until he needed them to help
his teachings; his sympathy with human nature taught him the power of
music in creating fervent devotion.
Reading the _Fioretti_, one learns that, in spite of the severe rule
he followed, Francis enjoyed his life; there must have been a singular
power of fascination in the man, who could always, wherever he went,
change sorrow into joy. He rejoiced in the beauty of nature, and went
singing along the dusty way, between the olive-trees and the
grape-laden vines, which then, as now, probably bordered the road on
either hand; he rejoiced in every trial laid on him, as a fresh
offering he could make to his God.
Francis sang till the birds came fluttering round him to share his
gladness, mingling their songs with his. At Bevagna, a place south of
Spello, he preached his famous sermon to these winged disciples, and
bade the swallows cease their disturbing twitter.
He loved all dumb creatures, and strove to care for them, calling them
his brothers and sisters; at Gubbio he tamed a wolf, till then the
terror of the place. Once, meeting a peasant who had an armful of wild
turtle-doves, he took them from the man, lest they should be killed or
ill-treated, and, bringing them home to La Portioncula, he caused
little nests to be made for the gentle birds, bade them live
peacefully, and increase and multiply according to the will of God.
As we drove along the lovely valley, filled now with golden light
varied by purple shadow, its glorious background of hills in every
delicate shade of blue, with spaces between, an opal gauze in the
sunshine, and villages nestling beside the tree-shaded Tiber, we saw,
hard by, the grey-peaked bridge, so ancient looking, that Francis may
one time or another have gone singing across it; and we felt that such
a mind could not have lived amid so much beauty without becoming
interpenetrated by it.
He is so entirely incorporated with Assisi and its surroundings, that
one cannot describe the old town without now and again referring to
the timeworn tale, so beautifully told by Monsieur Paul Sabatier.
Our two hours' drive between vines and olive-trees backed by grand
purple hills had been lovely. The grapes were almost ripe, pale gold
in colour, thickly hanging from tender green garlands, which stretched
from one tree to another and linked them together. In some fields
long-horned oxen were ploughing the stiff lumpy land between the
vines; here and there golden stalks of maize lay on the rich brown
soil. The sun-touched summits of Subasio and his brethren looked like
radiant clouds; the pure invigorating air was delightful.
[Illustration: CONVENT AND CHURCH OF SAN FRANCESCO.]
As one nears Assisi, the two salient points in the view are, on the
left, high up the mountain side, the great convent of San Francesco,
with its double churches; on the right, at the foot of the ascent to
the town, is seen the dome of Santa Maria degli Angeli.
The body of this church was built in the sixteenth century over the
original chapel, the Portioncula, in which St. Francis and his
disciples worshipped, and in which Santa Chiara and so many others
took the vows of the Order, and devoted themselves to lead lives of
poverty, chastity, and obedience.
Huge Subasio had been in front of us all the way, but we could now
distinguish clearly the long stretch of white houses clinging midway
to the side of the mountain; and above the houses, the campaniles and
spires of Assisi, while towering high over the road, supported by a
double row of lofty arches, are the convent, and the two churches of
San Francesco.
In a picture it would be difficult to give an adequate idea of the
approach to Assisi,--certainly word-painting cannot describe it.
Probably the thrill caused by the associations and surroundings of the
town intensifies the charm.
The varied colour of the hills on either side of us had become more
exquisite. Now we had in full view the scene described by Dante as
the birthplace of San Francesco, for the town seems a part of the
"Rich slope of mountain high, whence heat and cold
Are wafted through Perugia's eastern gate,
Upon that side where it doth break its steepness most, arose
A sun upon the world"--
Cary's Translation of _Il Paradiso_.
For miles round, this building of San Francesco makes a striking
landmark, and as long as it stands it bears witness to the strange and
beautiful story of the youth who gave up all that seemed to make life
worth living, to save not only his own soul, but those of others.
There was no tardy justice in the recognition given to his holy life,
and the benefits worked by his discipline. In 1228, two years after
his death, Francesco Bernardone was canonised by Pope Gregory IX.--the
tried friend who knew the life as well as the work of El Poverello--as
St. Francis of Assisi was called, and the building of the Lower Church
was begun.
Before the century ended this church and the upper one had become a
great centre of art-workers; in a sense, we may look on Francis of
Assisi as a source of inspiration to both Giotto and Dante; they were
all three originators and purifiers.
Dante's description in the _Paradiso_, or rather the story which he
makes St. Thomas Aquinas relate concerning Saint Francis, shows that a
lapse of centuries has not in any way altered the high esteem in which
he was held less than a century after his death. Dante was born only
thirty-nine years later; and as he certainly visited Assisi, he must
have been well acquainted with all the details of the saint's history.
It may have been in his exultation at the triumphs achieved by his
friend Giotto's frescoes at Assisi that the poet writes, after
mentioning Cimabue, "And now the cry is Giotto's."
Our driver stopped at the foot of the hill, and told us we had better
begin our pilgrimage at the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli. We
had, however, planned to begin the wonderful story at its first
chapter, and to visit the saint's birthplace, also the scene of his
final renunciation of the world. So we bade honest Checco drive us on
to the Hotel Subasio beside the hill, where we dismissed our carriage,
and looked at the room allotted to us.
We then climbed the bit of ascent, and feasted our eyes on the outside
of the churches of San Francesco.
[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO THE TOWN, ASSISI.]