_The Carceri, Rivo-Torto and Life at the Portiuncula_
"O beata solitudo,
O sola beatudine."
These three places near Assisi, so intimately associated with St.
Francis, were in a way emblematic of the various stages in the rise
and growth of his young community, and we shall see that the saint
went from one to the other, not by chance, but with a settled purpose
in his mind. The Carceri he kept as a something apart from, and
outside his daily life; it was a hermitage in the strict sense of the
word, where, far from the sound of any human voice, he could come and
live a short time in isolated communion with God. As his followers
increased, and the Order he had founded with but a few brethren
developed even in its first years into a great army, we can easily
understand the longing for solitude which at times became too strong
to be resisted, for his nature was well fitted for the hermit's life,
and it called him with such persistence to the woods among the flowers
and the birds he loved, that had he been less tender for the
sufferings of others, more blind to the ills of the Church, it is
possible that the whole course of events might have been altered.
Giotto would not have been called to Assisi, or if he had been, the
legends told to him by the friars might not have inspired him to paint
such master-pieces as he has left us in the Franciscan Basilica; and
we should now be the poorer because St. Francis had chosen seven
hundred years ago to live in an Etruscan tomb at Orte, or in a grotto
on Mount Subasio. So much depended, not only upon what St. Francis
achieved, but on the way in which he chose to work. Who therefore can
tell how much we owe to the little mountain retreat of the Carceri,
where, spending such hours of wondrous peace surrounded by all that he
most cherished in nature, the saint could refresh himself and gain new
strength for long periods of arduous labour among men.
[Illustration: HERMITAGE OF THE CARCERI]
The Carceri came into the possession of St. Francis through the
generosity of the Benedictines who, until his advent, had held
unlimited sway in Umbria. Many churches, and we may say, almost all
the hermitages of the surrounding country belonged to them. But their
principal stronghold, built in the eleventh century, stood on the
higher slopes of Mount Subasio, while the Carceri, lying a little to
the west, was used by them probably as a place of retreat when wearied
of monastic life. Both monastery and hermitage seem to have been
quiet enough, and we only occasionally hear of the Benedictine monks
starting off on a visit to some hermit of renowned sanctity, or going
upon some errand of mercy among the peasants in the valley, whom they
often surprised by marvellous though somewhat aimless miracles wrought
for their edification. Then early in the fourteenth century these
hermit monks of Mount Subasio suddenly found themselves in the midst
of the fighting of a mediaeval populace, for the Assisans, not slow to
discover the great military importance of the Benedictine Abbey,
wished to possess it. When the struggle between Guelph and Ghibelline
was at its height, the monks were driven to take refuge in the town,
while their home was taken possession of by the exiled party who used
it as a fortress whence they could sally forth and harass the eastern
approach to Assisi. Perpetual skirmishes took place beneath its walls
until the roving adventurer Broglia di Trino, who had made himself
master of the town in 1399, in a solemn council held at the Rocca
Maggiore issued an edict that the Monastery of St. Benedict was to be
razed to the ground, determining thus to deprive the turbulent nobles
and their party of so sure a refuge in times of civil war.
The solid walls and fine byzantine columns of what once was the most
celebrated abbey in Umbria now remain much as in the mediaeval days of
their wreckage, and, until a few years ago when some repairs were
made, the church was open for the mountain birds to nest in, and wild
animals used it as their lair.
But both church and monastery stood proudly upon the mountain height
above the plain when St. Francis, then the young mendicant looked upon
by many as a madman, would knock at the gates, and the abbot followed
by his monks, came out to listen to the humble requests he so often
had to make. These prosperous religious most generously patronised St.
Francis in the time of his obscurity, giving him the chapel of the
Portiuncula, and later (the date is uncertain but some say in 1215)
they allowed him to take possession of the still humbler chapel and
huts of the Carceri. Even to call such shelters huts is giving them
too grand a name, for they were but caverns excavated in the rock,
scattered here and there in a deep mountain gorge. They can still be
seen, unchanged since the days of St. Francis save for the tresses of
ivy growing thick, like a curtain, across the entrance, for now there
are none to pass in and out to pray there.
Even the attempt to describe the loneliness and discomfort of this
hermitage seems to strike terror into the hearts of later franciscan
writers, who no longer caring to live in caves, only saw Dantesque
visions when they thought of these arid, sunburnt rocks, rushing
torrents and wild wastes of mountains which even shepherds never
reached. But luckily in those days there was one Umbrian who loved
such isolated spots; and the charm of that silence, born of the very
soul of Francis and guarded jealously by nature herself during long
centuries in memory of him, now tempts us up the mountain side upon a
pilgrimage to the one place where his spirit still lives in all its
primitive vigour and purity.
The road leading to the Carceri[51] from the Porta Cappucini passes
first through rich corn fields and olive groves, but as it skirts
round Mount Subasio towards the ravine it becomes a mere mountain
track. Only here and there, where peasants have patiently scraped away
the stones, grows a little struggling corn, while small hill flowers
nestle between the rocks unshaded even by olive trees; the colour of a
stray Judas tree, or a lilac bush in bloom, only makes the landscape
seem more barren and forlorn. Looking upon the road to Spello, winding
down the hill through luxuriant fields of indian corn and olive
groves, with the oak trees spreading their still fresher green over
the vineyards of the plain, we feel that this pathway to the Carceri
is something novel and unlike anything at Assisi which we have
hitherto explored. Just as we are marvelling at its loveliness, a
sudden turn brings Assisi once more in view, and the sight we get of
it from here carries us straight back to the days of St. Francis; for
the great basilica and convent are hidden by the brow of the hill, and
what we now see is exactly what he looked upon so often as he hastened
from Assisi to his hermitage, or left it when he was ready to take up
the burden of men's lives once more. The old walls, looking now much
as they did after a stormy battle with Perugia, stretch round the same
rose-tinted town, which, strangely enough, time has altered but
slightly--it is only a little more toned in colour, the Subasian stone
streaked here and there with deeper shades of yellow and pink, while
the castle is more ruined, rearing itself less proudly from its green
hill-top than in earlier days of splendour. But charming as the view
of the town is, we quickly leave it to watch the changes of light and
colour in the valley and on the wide-bedded Tescio as it twists and
turns in countless sharp zig-zags till we lose it where it joins the
Tiber--there where the mist rises. We might travel far and not find so
fascinating a river as the Tescio; only a trickle of water it is true,
but sparkling in the sunshine like a long flash of lightning which
has fallen to earth and can find no escape from a tangle of fields and
vineyards.[52] Then our road turns away again from the glowing valley
shimmering in the haze of a late May afternoon, and mounting ever
higher we plunge into the very heart of the Assisan mountain,
uncultivated, wild, colourless and yet how strangely beautiful.
Another half mile brings us round the mountain side to a narrow gorge,
and the only thing in sight except the ilex trees is an arched doorway
with a glimpse, caught through the half open gate, of a tiny
courtyard. A step further on and we find ourselves standing amidst a
cluster of cells and chapels seeming as if they hung from the bare
rocks with nothing to prevent them falling straight into the depths of
the ravine; and the silence around is stranger far than the mountain
solitude. Surely none live here, we think, when suddenly a
brown-clothed friar looks round the corner of a door, and without
waste of time or asking of questions beckons us to follow, telling
rapidly as he goes the story of each tree, rock, cell and shrine.
Crossing two or three chapels and passing through a trap-door and down
a ladder, we reach a narrow cave-like cell where St. Francis used to
sleep during those rare moments when he was not engaged in prayer. As
at La Vernia this "bed" was scooped out of the rock, and a piece of
wood served him as a pillow. Adjoining is an oratory where the
crucifix the saint always carried with him is preserved. The doors are
so narrow and so low that the smallest person must stoop and edge in
sideways. From these underground caves it is a joy to emerge once
more into the sunlight, and one of the delightful surprises of the
place is to step straight out of the oppressive darkness of the cells
into the ilex wood, with the banks above and around us glowing with
sweet-scented cyclamen, yellow orchids, and long-stemmed violets. It
is not surprising that St. Francis often left his cell to wander
further into these woods when the birds, as though they had waited for
his coming, would gather from all sides and intercept him just as he
reached the bridge close to the hermitage. While they perched upon an
ilex tree (which is still to be seen), he stood beneath and talked to
them as only St. Francis knew how. His first sermon to the birds took
place at Bevagna, but at the Carceri he was continually holding
conversations with his little feathered brethren. This perhaps was
also where he held his nocturnal duet with the nightingale, which was
singing with especial sweetness just outside his cell. St. Francis
called Brother Leo to come also and sing and see which would tire
first, but the "little Lamb of God" replied that he had no voice,
refusing even to try. So the saint went forth alone to the strange
contest, and he and the bird sang the praises of God all through the
darkest hours of the night until, quite worn out, the saint was forced
to acknowledge the victory of Brother Nightingale.
Very different is the story of his encounter with the tempting devil
whom he precipitated by his prayers into the ravine below; the hole
through which the unwelcome visitor departed is still shown outside
the saint's cell. Devils do not play a very prominent part in the
story of the first franciscans, but this mountain solitude seems to
have so excited the imaginations of later chroniclers that yet another
story of a devil belongs to the Carceri, and is quaintly recounted in
the _Fioretti_. This time he appeared to Brother Rufino in the form
of Christ to tempt him from his life of holiness. "O Brother Rufino,"
said the devil, "have I not told thee that thou shouldst not believe
the son of Pietro Bernardone?... And straightway Brother Rufino made
answer: 'Open thy mouth that I may cast into it filth.' Whereat the
devil, being exceeding wroth, forthwith departed with so furious a
tempest and shaking of the rocks of Mount Subasio, which was hard by,
that the noise of the falling rocks lasted a great while; and so
furiously did they strike one against the other in rolling down that
they flashed sparks of terrific fire in all the valley, and at the
terrible noise they made St. Francis and his companions came out of
the house in amazement to see what strange thing was this; and still
is to be seen that exceeding great ruin of rocks."
Close to the spot rendered famous by the devil's visits a bridge
crosses the gorge of a great torrent, which, threatening once to
destroy the hermitage, was miraculously dried up by St. Francis, and
now only fills its rocky bed when any public calamity is near. From it
a good view is obtained of the hermitage, but perhaps a still better
is to be had from under the avenue of trees a little beyond, on the
opposite side of the deep ravine whence the groups of hovels are seen
to hang like a honeycomb against the mountain side, so tightly set
together that one can hardly distinguish where the buildings begin and
the rock ends.
The ilex trees grow in a semicircle round this cluster of cells and
caverns, and high above it all rises a peak of Mount Subasio, grey as
St. Francis' habit, with a line of jagged rocks on the summit which
looks more like the remains of some Umbrian temple of almost
prehistoric days than the work of nature.
The sides of this mountain ravine approach so near together that only
a narrow vista of the plain is obtained, blue in the summer haze, with
no village or even house in sight. It would be difficult to find a
place with the feeling of utter solitude so unbroken, and as we
realised that these friars lived here nearly all their life, many not
even going to Assisi more than once in five years, we said to one of
them: "How lonely you must be," and he, as though recalling a time of
struggle in the world, answered: "Doubtless there are better things in
the town, but here, at the Carceri, there is peace."
[Illustration: THE CARCERI WITH A VIEW OF THE BRIDGE]
It is the hermit's answer; but now the need of such lives has long
since passed away, and even St. Francis, living at the time when the
strain of perpetual warfare, famine, pestilence and crime, created a
fierce craving for solitude in the lives of many, realised that a
hermitage must only be a place to rest in for a while--not to live
in. His anxiety to keep his Order from becoming a contemplative one is
shown in the following rule he carefully thought out for his
disciples. "Those religious who desire to sojourn in a hermitage are
to be at the most three or four. Two are to be like mothers having a
son. Two are to follow the life of a Martha, the other the life of a
Mary." Then they were to go forth again strenuously to their work
abroad and give place to others in search of rest and peace.
But after the death of St. Francis the Carceri gradually lost its
primitive use, and the principal person who entirely changed its
character was St. Bernardine of Siena who in 1320 made many
alterations and additions, building a larger chapel, adding cells and
a kitchen, but so small, remarks a discontented franciscan chronicler,
that it barely held the cooking utensils. Although we can no longer
call it a hermitage, the Carceri became the type of an ideal
franciscan convent such as Francis dreamed of for his followers when
he went to live at the Portiuncula, and such it has remained to this
day. For certainly the place, as left by St. Bernardine, would have
been approved of by the first franciscans as a dwelling-place, but
those of later years can only tell us of its discomforts. Here is a
graphic description of its primeval simplicity which very nearly
corresponds to its present state: "It were better called a grotto with
six lairs; one sees but the naked rock untouched by the chisel, all
rough and full of holes as left by nature; those who see it for the
first time are seized with extraordinary fear on climbing the ladder
leading to the dormitory, at each end of which are other poor
buildings, added by the religious according as need arose for the use
of the friars, who do not care to live as hermits did in the olden
times. The refectory is small, and can contain but few friars; a
brother guardian made an excavation, of sufficient height and breadth
in the rock, and added thereto a table around which can sit other six
religious, so that those who take their places at this new table are
huddled up in the arched niche which forms a baldaquin above their
heads. There is also a little common room which horrifies all
beholders, wherein is lit a fire, for besides being far inside the
rocky mass it is gloomy beyond description by reason of the dense
smoke always enclosed therein, this is a lively cause to the religious
of reflection on the hideousness and obscurity of the darkness of
hell; in lieu of receiving comfort from the fire the poor friars
generally come out with tears in their eyes." To somewhat atone for
these discomforts they possessed a fountain, raised, as we are told,
by the prayers of St. Francis, which never ran dry, "a miracle God has
wished to perpetuate for the glory of His faithful servants and the
continual comfort of the monks."
The crucifixion in the chapel built by St. Bernardine adjoining the
choir, is said to have been painted by his orders. The artistic merits
of the fresco are questionable, but connected with it is a legend
possibly invented by some humorous member of the franciscan
brotherhood in order to point a moral to his companions. "Here," says
a chronicler, "is adored that most marvellous crucifixion, so famous
in religion; it is well known to have spoken several times to the
devout Sister Diomira Bini of the Third Order of St. Francis and a
citizen of Assisi; and in our own times, in the last century (the
seventeenth) it was seen by Brother Silvestro dello Spedalicchio to
detach itself from the cross, and with most gentle slaps on the face,
warn a worshipper to be reverent and vigilant while praying in this
His Sacred Oratory."
In a small wooden cupboard in the chapel, according to an inventory
made two hundred years ago, are preserved some relics, a few of which
we have unfortunately not been able to identify. Part of the wooden
pillow used by St. Francis, and a piece of the Golden Gate through
which our Lord passed into Jerusalem, are still here, but the hair of
the Virgin, and, strangest of all, some of the earth out of which God
created Adam, are no longer to be found!
* * * * *
Ten or twelve friars continued to live at the Carceri for a few years
after the death of St. Bernardine; some begged their daily bread from
the villagers in the valley, others dug in the tiny garden at the foot
of the ravine where a few vegetables grew, and two always remained at
the convent to spin the wool for the habits of the religious. But soon
wearying of the life they went to live at other convents, and the
place passed away from the franciscans into the possession of various
sects, among others to the excommunicated Fraticelli. In 1415 it was
given back to the Observants, and Paolo Trinci, who had done much to
reform the Order, persuaded some friars to live once more at the
deserted hermitage. Again the Carceri became such an ideal franciscan
convent that many came from afar to visit it, and there is a strange
story of how a "woman monk" found a home and died here in the middle
of the fifteenth century.
"Beata Anonima," a chronicler recounts, "being already a Cistercian
nun in the convent of S. Cerbone of Lucca at the time of the siege of
that city by the Florentines, when the said nuns, for valid reasons,
were transferred to the convent of Sta. Christina inside the city. Now
this most fervent servant of God took this opportune time and fled by
stealth, disguised as a man, and went, or rather flew, to Assisi;
there, fired with an ardent desire to fight under the seraphic
standard, she breathlessly climbed the steep slopes of Mount Subasio,
and having found the horrible cavern of Santa Maria delle Carceri
fervently entreated those good Fathers to admit her amongst them and
to bestow on her their sacred habit, for which her longing was
extreme. At length, having overcome all resistance, believing her to
be a man as appeared from her dress, and not a woman which in reality
she was, they admitted her to the convent and gave her the habit of
religion." She edified all by the holiness of her life and the rigid
penances she performed, but her health soon suffered and only upon her
death-bed, surrounded by the friars chanting the psalms for the dying,
the Blessed Anonima confessed to the fraud she had practised in order
to dwell in the hermitage rendered so dear because of the memory of
the Poverello d'Assisi.
RIVO-TORTO[53]
A straight and stony road, the old Roman one, now overgrown in many
parts with grass and trails of ivy and bordered by mulberry and oak
trees, leads out of the Porta Mojano to two little chapels in the
plain. Set back from the main road in the midst of the fields few
people find them, and the peasants know nothing of their story and can
only tell of a miraculous well in which a youthful saint met his
death. When his body was brought to the surface a lily had grown from
his mouth and upon its petals was written in letters of gold the one
word, _Veritas_, for he had died in the cause of truth. Since then, as
the peasants recount with pride, many come from afar to drink of the
waters of this well for it cures every ill. It is over-grown with
ferns and close by stands an ancient sarcophagus where the children
sit to eat their midday meal. A piece of old worn sculpture still
ornaments the chapel of the young martyr, and the feeling of the place
is very charming, but the pilgrim who comes to Assisi to visit St.
Francis, has a different picture to recall with another kind of beauty
belonging to it than that of holy wells and flowering banks and
meadows.
It is difficult, when looking on San Rufino d'Arce, with its cluster
of vine-shaded peasant houses, and then on Santa Maria Maddalena,
narrow windowed, the small apse marking it as a primitive Umbrian
chapel of the fields, to realise that in the Middle Ages this was a
leper village separated from Assisi by a little more than a mile of
open country. And yet here, without doubt, we have Rivo-Torto where,
even before his famous interview with Innocent III, St. Francis had
stayed with those three first Assisan companions, Bernard di
Quintavalle, Peter Cataneo and Egidio. Then in the autumn of 1210,
when he returned from Rome after the rule of poverty had been
sanctioned by the Church, but before he was ready to begin his mission
as preacher, he came to live among the lepers, forming with his
disciples a little family which we may call the beginning of a first
franciscan settlement.
The leper village was divided according to the social rank of the
outcasts, the richer living together near the chapel of Sta. Maria
Maddalena and forming quite a community with the right of freely
administering their own goods. As M. Sabatier observes, it was
therefore not "only a hospital, but almost a little town near the city
with the same social distinctions of classes."
Those tended by St. Francis were the poorest of the lepers, whose
wretched hovels lay near the chapel of San Rufino d'Arce; and Celano
must be referring to this settlement when he tells us how Francis in
his early days, even if he chanced to look down from Assisi upon the
houses of the lepers in the plain, would hold his nostrils with his
hand, because his horror of them was so great.
But as the grace of God touched his heart, making him take pity upon
all things weak and suffering, he turned the force of his strong
nature to overcoming this repugnance, and there is a beautiful story
telling of the first victory gained shortly after his conversion.
While riding one day near Assisi he met a leper, and filled with
disgust and even fear at the sight, his first impulse was to turn his
horse round, but, remembering his new resolutions to follow the
teaching of Christ, he went forward to meet the poor man, and even
kissed the hand extended to him for alms. "Then," says St.
Bonaventure, "having mounted his horse, he looked around him over the
wide and open plain, but the leper was nowhere to be seen. And Francis
being filled with wonder and gladness, devoutly gave thanks to God,
purposing within himself to proceed to still greater things than
this." Certainly the event heralded a life of holiness, and was the
means of rousing his latent energies and the feelings for
self-sacrifice which drove him from the wild and solitary places he
loved into the very midst of the world, there to work strenuously, in
every part of Italy, at first among lepers and then among the wealthy,
the ignorant and the sorrowful.
For the life at Rivo-Torto led by "these valiant despisers of the
great and good things of this world" we cannot do better than turn to
the Three Companions (Brothers Masseo, Ruffino and Leo) who knew by
personal experience the hardships and roughness of the place.
Feelingly they describe: "a hovel, or rather a cavern abandoned by
man; the which place was so confined that they could hardly sit down
to repose themselves. Many a time they had no bread, and ate nought
but turnips which they begged for here and there in travail and in
anguish. On the beams of the poor hut the man of God wrote the names
of the brethren, so that whoso would repose or pray might know his
place and not disturb, by reason of the cramped and limited space in
the small hovel, the quietude of the night." Even the appearance of
Otto IV, close to their hut seems in no way to have disturbed the
peaceful course of their lives, but only gave St. Francis the
opportunity of bestowing a timely warning upon the Emperor. Celano,
ever delighting in the picturesque details of ceremonies and pageants,
tells us how "there came at that time with much noise and pomp the
great Emperor on his way to take the terrestrial crown of the Empire;
now the most holy father with his companions being in the said house
near the road where the cavalcade was passing, would neither go out to
see it, nor permit his brethren to go, save one, whom he commanded
fearlessly to announce to Otto that his glory would be short-lived."
Thus, if the tale be true, a German Emperor was the first to listen to
Francis' message to a mediaeval world sunk in the love of earthly
things, and who knows whether the saint's words did not come back to
Otto again in after years.
The Penitents of Assisi only remained until the spring at Rivo-Torto,
for even during those few months' sojourn among the lepers their
numbers had so increased that it became necessary to think of some
surer abode. One day St. Francis called the brethren to tell them how
he had thought of obtaining from one of his various kind friends in
Assisi, a small chapel where they could peacefully say their Hours,
having some poor little houses for shelter close by built of wattle
and mud.
His speech was pleasing to the brethren, and so, following the master
they loved and trusted, all went to dwell at the Portiuncula, where,
as we shall see, a new life was to begin for them.
THE PORTIUNCULA
"Holy of Holies is this Place of Places,
Meetly held worthy of surpassing honour!
Happy thereof the surname, 'Of the Angels,'
Happier yet the name, 'The Blessed Mary.'
Now, a true omen, the third name conferreth
'The Little Portion' on the Little Brethren,
Here, where by night a presence oft of Angels
Singing sweet hymns illumineth the watches."
(_The Mirror of Perfection_, translated by Sebastian Evans.)
Those who want to realise the charm of the Portiuncula and of the
memories that cling about it, must try to forget the great church
which shuts out from it the sunlight, and with the early chroniclers
as their guides, call up the image of St. Francis with his first
disciples who in an age of unrest came here to seek for peace.
Make your pilgrimage in the springtime or in the early summer, when
pink hawthorn and dogroses are flowering in every hedge and the vines
fill the valley with a delicate green light. Looking at cities and
villages so purely Umbrian, some spread among cornfields close to a
swift clear river, others set upon heights which nearly touch the sky
on stormy days, we forget that beyond these hills and mountains
encircling the big valley of Umbria stretch other lands as fair. We
forget, because it is a little world which during long centuries has
been set apart from all else, and where man has but completed the work
of nature herself. During the long hours of a summer's day, when the
sense of remoteness in the still plain is most intense, it brings to
us, as nothing else can ever do, some feeling of that early time when
four hermits came from Palestine and found a quiet retreat in the oak
forests of Assisi.
It was in the year 352, as St. Cyril, Patriarch of Jerusalem, relates,
when a cross had been seen stretched from Calvary to the Mount of
Olives and to shine more brightly than the sun, that four holy men,
impelled by a feeling that some great crisis was at hand, determined
to visit the shrines of Rome. Having performed their devotions and
offered many precious relics to Pope Liberius, they expressed a great
desire to find some hermitage where, each in a silent cell, they could
meditate upon the marvellous things they had seen in the Eternal City.
The Pope gave them most excellent advice when he told them to go to
the Spoletan valley. With his sanction to choose any part of it they
liked, they passed over the mountains dividing Umbria from the
Campagna, and by many towns until, when about a mile from Assisi, they
determined to build their dwellings in the plain, thinking, as indeed
they might, to find no other spot so suited for a quiet retreat. Close
to four huts of rough hewn stone and brushwood they erected a tiny
chapel with a pent roof and narrow window which, perhaps in memory of
their native valley, they dedicated to St. Mary of Jehosaphat. But
after a few years, forsaking the life of hermits, they again took up
their staves and returned home to Palestine by way of the Romagna,
leaving beneath the altar of the chapel they had built a relic of the
Virgin's sepulchre.
[Illustration: SIDE DOOR OF THE PORTIUNCULA BUILT BY ST. BENEDICT]
At different times other devout hermits, charmed by the lonely chapel,
took possession of it for a time, but it was often deserted for many
years. Its preservation is due to St. Benedict who, passing through
Umbria during the early part of the sixth century, was inspired to
restore the ruined chapel and dwell near it for awhile. He not only
repaired the walls, but built the two large round arched doors we see
to this day, and which many declare to be quite out of proportion to
the rest of the building, but their unusual size is accounted for by
a charming legend. Once when St. Benedict was praying in the chapel he
saw a marvellous vision as he knelt wrapt in ecstasy. A crowd of
people were praying around him to St. Francis, singing hymns of praise
and calling for mercy on their souls, while outside still greater
multitudes waited for their turn to come and pray before the shrine.
St. Benedict, understanding from this that a great saint would one day
be honoured here, made the two doors in the chapel, and made them
large enough for many to pass in and out at a time. Thus was the feast
of the "Pardon of St. Francis" prepared for some seven hundred years
too soon.
St. Benedict obtained from the Assisans the gift of a small plot of
ground near the sanctuary, which suggested to him the name of St. Mary
of the Little Portion--Sta. Maria della Portiuncula. When a few years
later St. Benedict founded his famous order at Monte Cassino, he did
not forget the Umbrian chapel he had saved from ruin, and sent some of
his monks to live there and to minister among the people. Like the
first hermits they lived in poor huts, saying their Hours in the
little chapel, until in the eleventh century they built a large
monastery and church upon the higher slopes of Mount Subasio to the
east of Assisi, and the Portiuncula was again deserted. But although
no one lived near, and mass was never celebrated there, it still
remained in the keeping of the benedictines who occasionally must have
seen to its repair, and thus preserved it for the coming of St.
Francis.
* * * * *
It has been suggested to me that the spot selected by the four holy
pilgrims in the fourth century may have been even then the site of a
sacred shrine, for the custom of erecting tabernacles over the graves
of distinguished persons reaches back to very early times. Originally
designed as a mortuary cell such a structure might, being duly
oriented, come to be used as a chapel for service.
The subject of "Sepulchral Cellae" will be found treated of by the late
Sir Samuel Fergusson[54] in a memoir in which he figures some of the
burial vaults and early oratories of Ireland, some of which are in
shape identical with Sta. Maria della Portiuncula, with the same pent
roof, round arched door, and perfectly plain walls. A building thus
erected over a grave was called _Porticulus_, and any who pillaged "a
house made in form of a basilica over a dead person" had to pay a
fine.
From an archaeological point of view there is much to be desired in the
published descriptions of the Portiuncula. A great part of its
exterior walls is now covered with frescoes which hide all detail, but
perhaps a minute examination of the interior walls might reveal
portions of the foundations built upon by St. Benedict, and we
sincerely hope that these few words may attract attention to so
interesting a subject.
But even if the shrine said to have been built by the hermits from
Palestine for Our Lady's Girdle turns out to have been an ancient
tomb, the later legends are by no means destroyed. It is not unlikely
that St. Benedict, attracted as much by lonely places as St. Francis,
took possession of the Umbrian tomb, and perhaps little thinking what
it was, rebuilt and used it as a chapel. Whatever may be the true
story, it is very certain that the Portiuncula, from earliest times,
has possessed a strange attraction for all who passed by, each one
thinking a tiny chapel situated so charmingly in the woods, within
sight, though not within sound, of the Umbrian towns, to be a perfect
spot for prayer.
The country people treasure the legend that Madonna Pica often came to
pray at the Portiuncula, and through the intercession of the Blessed
Virgin obtained a son after seven years of waiting, and this son of
prayer and patience was St. Francis of Assisi.
Half ruined and neglected as the chapel was, Francis learned, even as
quite a child, to love it, and kneeling therein by his mother's side
would pray with all the fervour of his childish faith. Later in life
when he had turned from the mad follies of his youth to follow in the
footsteps of Christ, he remembered the shrine he had loved in
childhood, and would pass many nights there in prayer and bitter
meditation upon the Passion. At last touched by the sight of its
crumbling walls, he set himself the task of repairing them, working so
busily with stones and mortar that the chapel soon regained its former
simple beauty. The Benedictines of Mount Subasio, touched by his
ungrudging labour and piety, arranged with an Assisan priest to
celebrate mass at the Portiuncula from time to time, and this fact
drew the young saint there still oftener.
Then followed his time of ministry among the lepers of San Rufino
d'Arce, when day by day so many disciples came to enlist in this new
army of working beggars that the little hut in the leper-village could
no longer hold them, and Francis had to think of some means of housing
the brethren, and obtaining, what he had often desired, a chapel
wherein they could say the Hours. (The saint, we may be sure, always
said his office in the woods.) But evidently he had no particular
place in his mind, not even his beloved Portiuncula, for he went first
to his friend Guido, Bishop of Assisi, and then to the canons of San
Rufino to ask if they could help him. They only answered that they had
no church to dispose of, and could offer no advice upon the subject.
Then sorrowfully, like a man begging from door to door, St. Francis
climbed Mount Subasio to lay his request in piteous terms before the
benedictine abbot, where he met with more success. Brother Leo tells
us that the abbot was "moved to pity, and after taking counsel with
his monks, being inspired by divine grace and will, granted unto the
Blessed Francis and his brethren the church of St. Mary of the Little
Portion, as being the smallest and poorest church they possessed. And
the abbot said to the Blessed Francis, 'Behold Brother, we grant what
thou desirest. But should the Lord multiply thy brotherhood we will
that this place shall be the mother-house of thy Order.'"[55]
With a willing heart Francis promised what the abbot asked, and
further insisted upon paying rent for the Portiuncula, because he
wished his followers always to bear in mind the point of his rule,
which he so often dwelt upon, namely, that they owned no property
whatever, but were only in this world as pilgrims. So every year two
of his brethren brought to the gate of the benedictine monastery a
basket full of roach caught in the Chiaggio which flows at no great
distance from the Portiuncula, and the abbot, smiling at the
simplicity of Francis, who had imagined yet another device for
humility, gave back a vessel full of oil in exchange for the gift of
fish.[56]
With great rejoicing St. Francis set to work building cells of a most
simple pattern, with walls of wattle and dab, and thatched with straw,
each brother inscribing his name upon a portion of the mud floor set
apart for him to rest in. "And no sooner had they come to live here,"
writes Brother Leo, "than the Lord multiplied their number day by day,
and the sweet scent of their good name spread marvellously abroad
throughout all the Spoletan valley, and in many parts of the world."
It was thus that St. Mary of the Little Portion, henceforth to be the
nucleus of the franciscan order, and a place familiar to pilgrims from
far and near for many succeeding centuries, came into the keeping of
St. Francis in the year 1211, about nine months after Innocent III had
sanctioned his work among the people of Italy.
St. Francis and the brethren had been but a year in their new abode
when a figure passed in among them for a moment and then was gone,
leaving, as a vision to haunt them to their dying day, the memory of
her beauty and soul's purity.
Never in the history of any saint has there been so touching and
wondrous a scene as when the young Clare left her father's palace in
Assisi to take the vows of perpetual and voluntary poverty at the
altar of the Portiuncula. Followed by two trembling women, she passed
swiftly through the town in the dead of night, across the fields by
the slumbering village of Valecchio, and through dark woods made more
sombre by the starry Umbrian sky which at intervals gleamed between
the wide-spreading branches of the oak trees. The hurrying figure of
the young girl, swathed in a long mantle, seemed like some spirit
driven by winds towards an unknown future. One thing alone was clear
to her, she was nearing the abode of Francis Bernardone whose
preaching at San Giorgio only a month before had so thrilled her,
inspiring her in this strange way to seek the life he had described in
such fiery words. And just as she came in sight of the Portiuncula the
chanting of the brethren, which had reached her in the wood, suddenly
ceased, and they came out with lighted torches in expectation of her
coming. Swiftly and without a word she passed in to attend the
midnight mass which Francis was to serve.
The ceremony was simple, wherein lies the charm of all things
franciscan. The service over and the last blessing given, St. Francis
led Clare towards the altar and with his own hands cut off her long
fair hair and unclasped the jewels from her neck. But a few minutes
more and a daughter of the proud house of Scifi stood clothed in the
brown habit of the order, the black veil of religion falling about her
shoulders, lovelier far in this nun-like severity than she had been
when decked out in all her former luxury of silken gowns and precious
gems.
It was arranged that Clare was to go afterwards to the benedictine
nuns of San Paolo near Bastia, about an hour's walk further on in the
plain. So when the final vows had been taken, St. Francis took her by
the hand and they passed out of the chapel together just as dawn was
breaking, while the brethren returned to their cells gazing half sadly
as they passed, at the coils of golden hair and the little heap of
jewels which still lay upon the altar cloth.
* * * * *
Those early days at the Portiuncula were among the most important of
Francis' life; dreams which had come to him while he spent long hours
in the caves and woods near Assisi were to be fully realised, and the
work he felt inspired to perform was to be carried out in the busy
villages and cities of Italy and even further afield. All this was now
very clear to Francis, and more than ever anxious to keep the
simplicity of his order untouched, he taught his followers, in words
which fell so gently yet so earnestly from his lips, that they were to
toil without ceasing, and restlessly and without pause to wander from
castle to castle, from city to city, in search of those who needed
help. It may therefore at first seem strange that the "Penitents of
Assisi" owning nothing but the peace within their hearts, desiring no
better place for prayer than a cavern in some mountain gorge, should
establish themselves near a chapel which, if not nominally their own,
was practically regarded as the property of the Friars Minor. But in
this again we feel the wisdom and tenderness of the saint for his
little community. With all the fervour and fire of enthusiasm which
impelled him like a living force to seek his end, he well knew that
without some place in which to meet together and rest awhile, his
followers, who however much imbued with his ardent spirit were but
mortal men, would very likely fall away from the high ideal he had set
before them.
Thus the Portiuncula became to the brethren as a nest, where like
tired birds that long had been upon the wing, they could return after
much wandering to peaceful thoughts, to prayer and quiet labour.
[Illustration: THE PORTIUNCULA IN THE TIME OF ST. FRANCIS (FROM THE
"COLLIS PARADISI").]
It is not very difficult, with the print from the "Collis
Paradisi"[57] before us, and the remembrance of the large oaks
which still mark the ancient Roman roads leading from Assisi to the
plain, to call up the picture of the strange franciscan hamlet
clustering round a pent-roofed chapel, and with only trees for a
convent wall. What a life of peace in the mud huts! what a life of
turmoil and angry strife raging in the city just in sight!
The spirit of those days, when monachism meant all that was purely
ideal and beautiful, seems to live again. Then, day and night, each
brother strove to fit himself for the work he had in view, drawing
into his soul the peace and love he learned from nature herself as the
forest leaves rustled above his cell or the nightingales accompanied
the midnight office with their song. And when his turn came to take up
the pilgrim's staff and follow the lead of Francis, he went with
cheerfulness to bring to the people some of that child-like joy and
lightness of heart which marked the Little Brethren through whatever
land they wandered as the disciples of St. Francis.
Let us for a moment leave the Umbrian valley for the country near
Oxford, where on a bitter Christmas Day, two friars were journeying
upon their first mission to England.
"Going into a neighbouring wood they picked their way along a rugged
path over the frozen mud and hard snow, whilst blood stained the track
of their naked feet without their perceiving it. The younger friar
said to the elder: 'Father, shall I sing and lighten our journey?' and
on receiving permission he thundered forth a Salve Regina
misericordiae.... Now, when the hymn was concluded ... he who had been
the consoler said, with a kind of self congratulation to his
companion: 'Brother, was not that antiphonal well sung?'"
In this simple story, told us in the chronicle of Lanercost, how true
rings the franciscan note struck by Francis in those early days at the
Portiuncula. He was for ever telling the brethren not to show
sorrowful faces to one another, saying, as recorded by Brother Leo:
"Let this sadness remain between God and thyself, and pray to Him that
of His mercy He may forgive thee, and restore to thy soul His healthy
joyance whereof He deprived thee as a punishment for thy sins."
It is all so long ago, and yet in reading those ancient chronicles the
big church of the Angeli is for a time forgotten, and only the vision
of the Portiuncula and the mud huts, with the brethren ever to and fro
upon the road, remains with us as a strange picture in our modern
hurried life.
But although the brethren lived so quietly in this retreat of still
repose, St. Francis, ever watching over the welfare of his flock, was
careful that prayer and meditation should never be an excuse for
idleness, which of all vices he most abhorred. Therefore he encouraged
each friar who in the world had followed some trade, to continue it
here; so we hear of Beato Egidio, on his return from one of his long
journeys, seated at the door of his hut busily employed in making rush
baskets, while Brother Juniper, in those rare moments when he was out
of mischief, would pass his time in mending sandals with an awl he
kept up his sleeve for the purpose. Besides these individual
occupations there was much to attend to even in such humble dwellings
as those round the Portiuncula. Sometimes there were sick friars to
nurse, or vegetables had to be planted in the orchard and provisions
to be obtained, while the office of doorkeeper, as "Angels" came
perpetually to ask pertinent questions of the brethren, became quite a
laborious task. When it fell to Brother Masseo to answer the door he
had little peace. Upon one occasion he went in haste to see who was
making such a noise and found a "fair youth clothed as though for a
journey," so he spoke somewhat roughly, and the youth enquired how
knocking should be done. "Give three knocks," quoth Brother Masseo,
little dreaming he was instructing an angel in the art of knocking,
"with a brief space between each knock, then wait until the brother
has time to say a paternoster and to come unto thee; and if at the end
of that time he does not come knock once again."
Things went smoothly enough when left to the management of such friars
as Leo, Masseo or Rufino, but when one day the office of cook fell to
Juniper, that dear jester of the brotherhood, we get a humorous
picture of what his companions sometimes had to endure, and of the
kindness with which they pardoned all shortcomings. The brethren had
gone out, and Juniper being left alone devised an excellent plan
whereby the convent might be supplied with food for a fortnight, and
thus the cook have more time for prayer. "With all diligence," it is
related in the _Fioretti_, "he went into the village and begged for
several large cooking-pots, obtained fresh meat and bacon, fowls, eggs
and herbs, also he begged a quantity of firewood, and placed all these
upon the fire, to wit, the fowls with their feathers on, the eggs in
their shells, and the rest in like fashion." When the brethren came
home, one that was well acquainted with the simplicity of Brother
Juniper went into the kitchen, and seeing so many and such large pots
on a great fire, sat down amazed without saying a word, and watched
with what anxious care Brother Juniper did this cooking. Because of
the fierceness of the fire he could not well get near to skim the
pots, so he took a plank and tied it with a rope tight to his body and
sprang from one pot to the other, so that it was a joy to see him.
Contemplating all with great delight, this brother went forth from the
kitchen and finding the other brothers, said: "In sooth I tell you,
Brother Juniper is making a marriage feast."
Then in hurried Juniper, all red with his exertions and the heat of
the fire, explaining the excellent plan he had devised; and as he set
his mess upon the table he praised it, saying: "Now these fowls are
nourishing to the brain, this stew will refresh the body, it is so
good"; but the stew remained untasted, for, says the _Fioretti_,
"there is no pig in the land of Rome so famished that he would eat of
it."
At the end of any foolish adventure Brother Juniper would always ask
pardon with such humility that he edified his companions and all the
people he came in contact with, instead of annoying them with his
childish pranks. His goodness was manifest, and St. Francis was often
heard to say to those who wished to reprove him after one of his
wildest frolics, "would that I had a whole forest of these junipers."
Between the men who lived at the Portiuncula with the saint, and those
who in later times ruled large convents in the cities, the contrast
is so great that we would wish to draw still further from these
inexhaustible chronicles which reveal so charmingly the life of these
Umbrian friars. But to tell of all the events connected with the
Portiuncula would mean recounting the history of the whole franciscan
brotherhood, and we must now pass over many years to that saddest year
of all, when St. Francis was brought to die in the place he had so
carefully tended.
[Illustration: ASSISI FROM THE PLAIN]
Knowing that he had but a few more weeks of life, he begged the
brethren to find some means to carry him away from the Bishop's Palace
at Assisi where he had been staying some time. "Verily," he told them
pathetically, "because of my very infirmity I cannot go afoot"; so
they carried him in their arms down the hill to the plain, and when
they came to the hospital of San Salvatore dei Crociferi they laid him
gently down upon the ground with his face towards Assisi, because he
desired to bless the town for the last time before he died.
The blind saint, lifting his hand in blessing, pronounced these words
dear to the hearts of the Assisans to this day: "Blessed be thou of
the Lord, O city, faithful to God, because through thee many souls
shall be saved. The servants of the Most High shall dwell in great
numbers within thy walls, and many of thy sons shall be chosen for the
realms of heaven."
Then they carried him to the hut nearest the Portiuncula which was the
infirmary, and here his last days were passed.[58] Although he
suffered acutely, they were days of marvellous peace and joy. It is
beautiful to read how, with his usual tenderness, he thought of the
brethren he was leaving to carry on the work without him, encouraging
them all as they stood weeping round his bed. Like Isaac of old, the
Umbrian patriarch blessed his first born, Bernard of Quintavalle,
saying: "Come my little son that my soul may bless thee before I die,"
while he enjoined upon all to love and honour Bernard, who had been
the first to listen to his words now so many years ago. With all his
sons near him St. Francis dictated his will, wherein he describes the
way of life they were to lead, and which, coming from him at this
solemn moment, must always remain as a precious message from the
saint, in many ways of more importance than the Rule approved in his
life-time by Pope Honorius. When this was done he commended once again
to their special care the chapel of the Portiuncula. "I will," he said
to them, "that for all times it be the mirror and good example of all
religion, and as it were a lamp ever burning and resplendent before
the throne of God and before the Blessed Virgin."
The farewells to those of his immediate circle had been made and a
letter written to St. Clare, and now he wished to bid "the most noble
Roman matron, Madonna Giacoma dei Settesoli," one of his most devoted
followers, to come and take leave of him at Assisi. The letter had
only just been written when knocking at the door and the sound of
horses trampling was heard outside, and the brethren going out to
discover the cause of such unwonted noise found that Madonna Giacoma,
accompanied by her sons, two Roman senators, had been inspired to come
and visit the dying saint.
The brethren, somewhat averse to allow a woman, even one so renowned
for holiness as Madonna Giacoma, to enter their sacred precincts,
called to St. Francis in their doubt: "Father, what shall be done?
Shall we let her enter and come unto thee?" And the Blessed Francis
said: "The regulation is to be set aside in respect to this lady whose
great faith and devotion hath brought her hither from such far-off
parts." So Madonna Giacoma came into the presence of the Blessed
Francis weeping bitterly, and she brought with her the shroud-cloth,
incense, and a great quantity of wax for the candles which were to
burn before his body after death. She had even thought of some cakes
made of almonds and sugar, known in Rome by the name of _mostaccioli_,
which she had often made for him when he visited her. But the saint
was fast failing, and could eat but little of the cakes.
As the end came nearer his thoughts were drawn away from earth, and
true to the last to his Lady Poverty, he caused himself to be laid
naked on the ground as a token of his complete renouncement of the
world. His face radiant with happiness, he kept asking his companions
to recite the Canticle of the Sun, often joining in it himself or
breaking forth into his favourite psalm _Voce mea ad Dominum Clamavi_.
With words of praise and gladness the Blessed Francis of Assisi, the
spouse of Poverty, died in a mud hut close to the shrine he loved, on
the 3rd of October of 1226 in the forty-fifth year of his age.
His soul was seen to ascend to heaven under the semblance of a star,
but brilliant as the sun, upon clouds as white as snow. It was sunset,
the hour when in Umbria after the stillness of a warm autumn day an
unusual tremor passes through the land and all things in the valley
and upon the hill-sides are stirred by it, when a flight of larks
circled above the roof of the hut where the saint lay at rest. And
these birds of light and gladness "seemed by their sweet singing to be
in company with Francis praising the Lord God."
FOOTNOTES:
[51] It has sometimes happened that visitors, who have not read their
Murray with sufficient care, thinking "Le Carceri" are prisons where
convicts are kept, leave Assisi without visiting this charming spot.
"Carceri" certainly now means "prisons," but the original meaning of
the word in old Italian is a place surrounded by a fence and often
remote from human habitation.
[52] It is perhaps an insult to the Tescio to leave the traveller in
Umbria under the impression that this mountain torrent is always dry.
Certainly that is its usual condition, but we have seen it during the
storms that break upon the land in August and September overflow its
banks and inundate the country on either side; but with this wealth of
water its beauty goes.
[53] The large modern church of Rivo-Torto, on the road from Sta.
Maria degli Angeli to Spello, built to enclose the huts that St.
Francis and his companions are supposed to have lived in while tending
the lepers, has been proved without doubt by M. Paul Sabatier to have
no connection whatever with the Saint. In these few pages we have
followed the information given in a pamphlet which is to be found in
the Italian translation of his _Vie de S. Francois d'Assise_. It is
impossible here to enter into all the arguments relating to this
disputed point, but I think the authority of the best, and by far the
most vivid of the biographers of St. Francis can be trusted without
further comment, and that we may safely believe the hut of St.
Francis, known as Rivo-Torto, lay close to the present chapels of San
Rufino d'Arce and Sta. Maria Maddalena. See Appendix for information
as to their exact position in the plain and the nearest road to them.
_Disertazione sul primo luogo abitato dai Frati Minori su Rivo-Torto e
nell'Ospedale dei Lebbrosi di Assisi._ di Paul Sabatier (Roma, Ermanno
Loescher and Co., 1896).
[54] See _The Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy_, vol. xxvii.
Nov. 1882.
[55] _Speculum Perfectionis_, cap. lv., edited by Paul Sabatier.
[56] This custom ceased in the fifteenth century; but in the year
1899, through the piety of the Rev. Father Bernardine Ibald, it was
revived. Once again the franciscans take a small basket of fish to the
abbot and his monks who now live at S. Pietro in Assisi, where the
benedictines went when their mountain retreat was destroyed by order
of the Assisan despot, Broglia di Trino.
[57] This illustration is from a print to be seen in the somewhat rare
edition of the _Collis Paradisi Amoenitas, seu Sacri Conventus
Assisiensis Historiae_, published in 1704 at Montefalco by Padre
Angeli, and it may even have been taken from an earlier drawing. In it
there is the true feeling of a franciscan convent, such as the saint
hoped would continue for all time, and though there are some points
which are incorrect (the Church of Sta. Chiara, though curiously
enough not the convent, is represented, which was built several years
later than San Francesco), we get a clear idea of both Assisi and its
immediate neighbourhood. All the ancient gates of the town can be made
out, the Roman road from Porta Mojano to San Rufino d'Arce, a faint
indication of the path to the Carceri, and also the old road from
Assisi to the plain out of the gate of S. Giacomo, passing not very
far from the Ponte S. Vittorino. The wall round the Portiuncula and
the huts did not exist in the time of St. Francis, which, together
with the wooden gate, may have been added by Brother Elias. The
largest hut a little to the right of the chapel was the infirmary
where St. Francis died (now called the Chapel of St. Francis), and the
one behind it was his cell (now known as the Chapel of the Roses, see
chapter xi. for its story), whence he could easily pass out through
the woods to San Rufino d'Arce hard by.
[58] For fuller account see _The Mirror of Perfection_, translated by
Sebastian Evans, caps. 107, 108, 112, and _The Little Flowers of St.
Francis_, translated by J. W. Arnold (Temple Classics), chap. vi.