_Other Buildings in the Town_
The Cathedral of San Rufino. Roman Assisi. The Palazzo Pubblico.
The Chiesa Nuova. S. Paolo. Sta. Maria Maggiore. S. Quirico. S.
Appolinare. S. Pietro. The Confraternities (Chiesa dei
Pellegrini, etc.). The Castle.
Assisi is the only town we know of in Italy where the interest does
not centre round its cathedral and a certain sadness is felt, which
perhaps is not difficult to explain; St. Francis holds all in his
spell now just as he held the people long ago, so that the saints who
first preached Christianity to the Assisans, were martyred and brought
honour to the city, are almost forgotten and their churches deserted.
The citizens, though proud of their Duomo, with its beautiful brown
facade, hardly appear to love it, and we have often thought that they
too feel the sense of gloom and isolation in the small piazza, which
makes it a place ill-fitted to linger in for long. Men come and go so
silently, women fill their pitchers at the fountain but only the
splashing of water is heard, and they quickly disappear down a street;
even the houses have no life, for while the windows are open no one
looks out, and the total absence of flowers gives them a further look
of desolation. This part of the town was already old in mediaeval
times, and the far away mystery of an age which has few records still
lives around the cathedral and its bell tower. San Rufino stands in
the very centre of Roman Assisi and its history begins very soon
after the Roman era, one might say was contemporary with it, as the
saint whose name it bears, was martyred in the reign of Diocletian.
All the details of his death, together with the charming legend about
the building of the cathedral, come down to us in a hymn by St. Peter
Damian, who, although writing in 1052 of things which it is true
happened long before, had very likely learnt the traditions about it
from the Assisans while he lived in his mountain hermitage near
Gubbio. The story goes back to the time when the Roman consul of
Assisi received orders to stamp out the fast-spreading roots of
Christianity, and began his work by putting to death St. Rufino, the
pastor of the tiny flock. The soldiers hurried the Bishop down to the
river Chiaggio and, after torturing him in horrible fashion, flung him
into the water with a heavy stone round his neck. Some say that the
Emperor Diocletian came in person to see his orders carried out. That
night the Assisan Christians stole down to the valley to rescue the
body of their Bishop and place it in safety within the castle of
Costano, which still stands in the fields close to the river but
almost hidden by the peasant houses built around it. Here, in a marble
sarcophagus he rested, cared for and protected by each succeeding
generation of Christians who had learned from tradition to love his
memory, and secretly they visited the castle in the plain to pray by
the tomb of the martyred saint. Their vigilance continued until the
fifth century, when the Christians had already begun to burn the Pagan
temples and build churches of their own. Christianity, indeed, spread
so rapidly throughout Umbria that other towns cultivated a love for
relics, and fearing that the body of St. Rufino might be stolen from
the castle in the open country, the Assisans took the first
opportunity of bringing it within the town. In the year 412 Bishop
Basileo, with his clergy and congregation met at Costano, to seek
through prayer some inspiration so that they might know where to take
the body of their saint. As they knelt by his tomb an old man of
venerable aspect suddenly appeared among them, and spoke these words
in the Lord's name: "Take," he said, "two heifers which have not felt
the yoke, and harness them to a car whereon you shall lay the body of
St. Rufino. Follow the road taken by the heifers and where they stop,
there, in his honour shall ye build a church." These words were
faithfully obeyed: the heifers, knowing what they were to do, turned
towards Assisi, and brought the relics, through what is now the Porta
S. Pietro, to that portion of the old town known as the "Good Mother"
because the goddess Ceres is said to be buried there. The heifers then
turned slowly round, faced the Bishop and his people, and refused to
move. For some obscure reason the place did not please the Assisans,
and they began to build a church further up the hill; but every
morning they found the walls, which had been erected during the
preceding day, pulled down, until discouraged, they submitted to the
augury, and returned to the spot chosen by the heifers. Before long,
over the tomb of the Roman goddess, arose the first Christian church
of Assisi, dedicated to San Rufino.
[Illustration: CAMPANILE OF SAN RUFINO]
A few years ago the late Canon Elisei who has written many interesting
pamphlets on the cathedral, obtained permission from the government to
clear away the rubble beneath the present church; masses of Roman
inscriptions and pieces of sculpture were brought to light, together
with part of the primitive church of Bishop Basileo, and the whole of
what is known as the Chiesa Ugonia, from the Bishop of that name who
built it in 1028. With lighted torches the visitor can descend to the
primitive basilica and realise what a peaceful spot had been chosen
for this early place of worship, while picturing the Christians as
they knelt round the body of their Bishop, the light falling dimly
upon them through the narrow Lombard windows. The six columns, with
their varied capitals rising straight from the ground without the
support of bases, give a somewhat funereal aspect, recalling a crypt
rather than a church. The few vestiges of frescoes in the apse--St.
Mark and his lion, and St. Costanso, Bishop of Perugia--are said to
be, with the paintings in S. Celso at Verona, the oldest in Italy
after those in the catacombs at Rome. Ruins of other frescoes, perhaps
of the same date, can be traced above the door of the first basilica,
together with some stone-work in low relief of vine leaves and grapes,
but it is difficult to see them without going behind a column built in
total disregard of this lower building. The Roman sarcophagus is still
in the apse where the altar once stood, but open and neglected, for
the body of St. Rufino now lies beneath the altar of the present
cathedral. It is ornamented in rough high relief with the story of
Endymion; Diana steps from her chariot towards the sleeping shepherd,
Pomona has her arms full of fruit and flowers, and there are nymphs
and little gods of love and sleep. "It appeared to us," remarks one
prudish chronicler of the church, "the first time we beheld it, that
it was indecent to have present before the eyes of the faithful so
unseemly a fable; our scruples we however laid aside in remembering
that Holy Church is endowed with the power of purging from temples,
altars and urns, all pagan abominations, and from superstition to turn
them to the true service of God." No such scruples existed during the
early times, and there is an amusing story of how the people wishing
to place the marble sarcophagus, which had been left at Costano five
centuries before, in the Chiesa Ugonia, were prevented by the Bishop
who admired it, and had given orders that it should be brought to his
palace at Sta. Maria Maggiore. A great tumult arose in the town, but
although the people came to blows and the fight was serious on both
sides, no blood was shed. A further miracle took place when the
Bishop, determined to have his way, sent sixty men down to Costano who
were unable to move the sarcophagus which remained as though rooted in
the earth; and the event was the more remarkable as seven men
afterwards brought it at a run up the hill to the church of San
Rufino, where it remains to this day.
Already two basilicas had been built in honour of the saint, but the
Assisans dissatisfied with their size and magnificence, in the year
1134 called in the most famous architect of the day, Maestro Giovanni
of Gubbio, who before his death in 1210 had all but completed the
present cathedral and campanile. It is a great surprise when, emerging
from the narrow street leading from the Piazza Minerva thinking to
have seen all that is loveliest in Assisi, we suddenly catch sight of
the cathedral and its bell-tower. The rough brown stone which Maestro
Giovanni has so beautifully worked into delicately rounded columns,
cornices, rose-windows and doors with fantastic beasts, sometimes
looks as dark as a capucin's habit, but there are moments in the late
afternoon when all the warmth of the sun's rays sinks into it,
radiating hues of golden orange which as suddenly deepen to dark brown
again as the light dies away behind the Perugian hills.
All three doors are fine with their quaint ornaments of birds and
beasts and flowers, but upon the central one Giovanni expended all his
art. It is framed in by a double pattern of water-lilies and leaves,
of human faces, beasts, penguins and other birds with a colour in
their wings like tarnished gold. The red marble lions which guard the
entrance, with long arched necks and symmetrical curls, a human figure
between their paws, may belong to an even earlier period, and perhaps
were taken by Giovanni da Gubbio from the Chiesa Ugonia to decorate
his facade, together with the etruscan-looking figures of God the
Father, the Virgin and St. Rufino in the lunette above. Just below the
windows a long row of animals, such pre-historic beasts as may have
walked upon Subasio when no man was there to interrupt their passage,
seem to move in endless procession, and look down with faces one has
seen in dreams.
[Illustration: DOOR OF SAN RUFINO]
The interior of the cathedral is a disappointment; at first we accuse
the great Maestro Giovanni for this painful collection of truncated
lines and inharmonious shapes, until we find how utterly his work was
ruined in the sixteenth century by Galeazzo Alessi of Perugia. To
understand what the church was five centuries before Alessi came, it
is necessary to climb the campanile (only those who are attracted by
ricketty ladders and dizzy heights are advised to make the trial), and
when nearly half way up step out on to Alessi's roof, whence we can
view the havoc he has made. But he could not spoil Giovanni's
rose-windows, and through one of them we see the castle on its green
hill and the town below, cut into sections as though we were looking
at the Umbrian world through a kaleidoscope.
The outside of San Rufino is so lovely that we should be inclined to
advise none to enter, and thus spoil the impression it makes, were it
not for the triptych by Niccolo da Foligno, "the first painter in whom
the emotional, now passionate and violent, now mystic and estatic,
temperament of St. Francis' countrymen was revealed."[103] Here we
find a dreamy Madonna with flaxen hair, surrounded by tiny angels even
fairer than herself in crimson and golden garments folded about their
hips. The lunettes above are studded with patches of jewel-colour,
angels spreading their pointed wings upwards as they seem to be wafted
to and fro by a breeze. Four tall and serious saints stand round the
Virgin like columns; to the right St. Peter Damian busily writing in a
book, and St. Marcello, an Assisan martyr of the fourth century who
might pass for a typical Italian priest of the present day. On the
left is St. Rufino in the act of giving his pastoral blessing, and
St. Esuberanzio, another of Assisi's early martyrs, holding a missal.
They stand in a meadow thickly overgrown with flowers drawn with all
Niccolo's firm outline and love of detail. Fine as the picture is, it
cannot compare with the charming predella where the artist has worked
with the delicacy of a miniature painter. It represents the martyrdom
of St. Rufino; in the first small compartment the Roman soldiers on
horseback, their lances held high in the air, followed by a group of
prying boys, watch the Bishop's tortures as the flames shoot up around
him; and in the distance are two small hill-towns with the towers of
Costano in the plain. Then follows the scene where two young Assisan
Christians have come down to the Chiaggio to rescue the body of their
saint from the river. He lies stiffly in their arms, attired in his
episcopal vestments, and the water has sucked the long folds of his
cope below its surface. The last represents the procession of citizens
led by Bishop Basileo bringing St. Rufino's body from Costano, and is
one of the most exquisite bits of Umbrian painting. Niccolo has placed
the scene in early morning, the air is keen among the mountains, the
sun has just reached Assisi, seen against the white slopes of Subasio,
and turns its houses to a rosy hue, while the tiny wood in the plain
is still in deepest shadow. The white-robed acolytes mount the hill in
the sunlight followed by the people and the heifers which ought,
Niccolo has forgotten, according to the legend, to have led the way.
The picture is signed Opus Nicholai De Fuligneo MCCCCLX.
The only other fine things in the cathedral are the stalls of intarsia
work of carved wood, by Giovanni di Pier Giacomo da San Severino
(1520), a pupil of the man who executed the far finer stalls in San
Francesco. In the chapel of the Madonna del Pianto is a curious
wooden statue of the Pieta, how old and whether of the Italian or
French school it is difficult to say. A tablet records that in 1494
because of the great dissensions in the town this Madonna was seen to
weep, for which she has been much honoured, as is shown by the
innumerable ex-votos hung by the faithful round her altar.
[Illustration: THE DOME AND APSE OF SAN RUFINO FROM THE CANON'S
GARDEN]
The marble statue of St. Francis is by the French artist, M. Dupre (a
replica in bronze stands in the Piazza), while that of St. Clare is by
his daughter, who both generously gave their work to Assisi in 1882.
The statue of St. Rufino is by another Frenchman, M. Lemoyne.
The proudest possession of San Rufino is the font in which St.
Francis, St. Clare, St. Agnes and Frederick II, were baptised, and the
stone is shown upon which the angel knelt, who in the disguise of a
pilgrim assisted at the baptism of Assisi's saint. Often did Francis
come to San Rufino to preach when the small church of S. Giorgio could
no longer hold the crowds who flocked to hear him, and the hut where
the saint spent his nights in prayer and meditation before he preached
in the cathedral is now a chapel. This was the place of the miracle
when his companions at Rivo-Torto saw him descend towards them in a
chariot of fire (see p. 238). In the time of the saint it was the
cottage of a market-gardener and still stands amidst a vineyard, one
of the prettiest and sunniest spots in the town, where vines, onions,
wild flowers and cherry trees grow in happy confusion, and birds and
peasants sing all day long.
The charm of the Cathedral is best realised after witnessing one of
its many ceremonies, when the canons in crimson and purple,
processions of scarlet clothed boys swinging censers, and the Bishop
seated beneath a canopy of yellow damask his cope drawn stiffly to the
ground by a fussing acolyte, recall some of the magnificence of the
middle ages. The young priests bow low before the Bishop on their way
to the altar, return to their seats and bow again; incense fills the
church; the organ peals half drown the tenor's song, and through it
all, from the stalls, drone the voices of the canons reciting their
office. It is a gorgeous service but without a congregation, for even
the beggars have not stolen in; and Niccolo's Madonna looks out upon
the scene with big soft eyes which seem to follow us into the darkest
corners of the aisles.
ROMAN ASSISI.
Assisi is so much a place of one idea--of one interest--around which
everything has grown, that it is difficult to remember that a fairly
important town existed in Roman times, and that the Roman buildings,
still to be seen are, in the opinion of Mr Freeman, worth a visit even
if the church of San Francesco had never arisen. Some pleasant hours
may be passed finding the sites of pagan monuments, the remains of
ancient walls, and tracing the outline of the original town. In every
case we see how Roman Assisi has, in a very marked way, become part of
Mediaeval Assisi, palaces having been erected upon the foundations of
Roman houses and Christian churches upon the sites of ancient temples.
The Temple of Hercules stood at the bend of Via S. Quirico (now Via
Garibaldi) where it turns up to the ancient palace of the Scifi; while
the Porta Mojano, near which old walls and part of an aqueduct can be
seen, took its name from a temple of Janus which stood between it and
the Vescovado. Standing a little off the Piazza Nuova, in a part of
the town known as the "Gorga," are the remains of the amphitheatre. It
would be difficult to find much of the original edifice, but houses
having been built exactly on the ancient site its shape has been
preserved, and this strange medley of old and new was thought worthy
of a doric entrance gate by Galeazzo Alessi. Much the same thing has
happened with many of the castles in the country near Assisi, where
the peasant houses are grouped round them in such a way that only by
penetrating into the midst of a tangled mass of dwellings can the
vestige of a tower be here and there discerned to remind us of its
former state. Assisi, though of no military importance at that time,
aspired to become a little Roman town even more perfect than her
neighbours on the hills. The broad and strongly built drain which
extends from near the Porta Perlici beneath the Piazza Nuova to the
garden behind San Rufino, is said to have been used to carry off the
water from the amphitheatre after the mimic sea-fights which in Roman
times were so popular. A use was found for all things, and in time of
war a Roman drain proved a most efficient means of escape, especially
when the Baglioni were raiding the town and putting to death all they
met upon their road.
Some small remains of a Roman theatre are to be seen near the
cathedral but so buried amidst a wild garden that it is difficult to
form any just idea of its extent. The most splendid piece of masonry,
a Roman cistern, lies beneath the campanile of the cathedral and can
be easily looked into by the light of a torch, the sacristan even
suggests a descent into its dark depths by means of a rickety ladder.
An inscription recording the proud fact that Assisi possessed an
amphitheatre has been removed to the cathedral where it is placed
above the side entrance to the left. Other large portions of Roman
walls are to be found at the back of a shop in the Via Portica and
also in the Via San Paolo; both are marked upon the map. In those days
the town seems to have been identical with what we now call old
Assisi, namely the quarter round San Rufino extending to the portion
round San Francescuccio where are noticed the arched Lombard windows.
But by far the most interesting record of this early age is the Temple
of Minerva, which in spite of the damage done when it was turned into
a church, and the way in which the mediaeval buildings are crowded
round it, yet remains one of the most beautiful of ancient monuments.
The raising of the Piazza makes it difficult to realise, without going
below ground, how imposing the temple must have been when its steps
led straight down to the Forum. This can be reached by descending from
the Piazza into the "scavi," or excavations, where stands the great
altar with drains for the blood of the victims; the long inscription
giving the name of the donor of the Temple runs:
GAL. TETTIENVS PARDALAS ET TETTIENA GALENE TETTRASTILVM SVA PECVNIA
FECERVNT, ITEM SIMVLACRA CASTORIS ET POLLVCIS. MVNICIPIBVS
ASISINATIBVS DONO DEDER. ET DEDICATIONE EPVLVM DECVRIONIBVS SING. XV.
SEVIR. XIII. PLEBI X. DEDERVNT. S.C.L.D.
It is well known that Goethe went to Assisi solely to see the Temple,
and surprised the citizens by going straight down the hill again
without stopping to visit San Francesco. He wished to keep unimpaired
the impression this perfect piece of classical architecture had made
upon his mind, and we cannot refrain from translating his enthusiastic
description of it for these pages.
"From Palladio and Volkmann I had gathered that a beautiful temple of
Minerva, of the time of Augustus, was still standing and perfectly
preserved. Asking a good-looking youth where Maria della Minerva was,
he led me up through the city which stands on a hill. At length we
reached the oldest part of the town, and I beheld the noble building
standing before me, the first complete monument of ancient days that I
had seen. A modest temple as befitted so small a town, yet so perfect,
so finely conceived, that its beauty would strike one anywhere. But
above all its position! Since reading in Vitruvius and Palladio how
cities ought to be built and temples and other public edifices
situated, I have a great respect for these things.... The temple
stands half way up the mountain, just where two hills meet together,
on a piazza which to this day is called the Piazza.... In old times
there were probably no houses opposite to prevent the view. Abolish
them in imagination, and one would look towards the south over a most
fertile land, whilst the sanctuary of Minerva would be visible from
everywhere. Probably the plan of the streets dates from long ago as
they follow the conformation and sinuosities of the mountain. The
temple is not in the centre of the Piazza, but is so placed that a
striking, though fore-shortened, view of it is obtained by the
traveller coming from Rome. Not only should the building itself be
drawn but also its fine position. I could not gaze my full of the
facade; how harmonious and genial is the conception of the artist....
Unwillingly I tore myself away, and determined to draw the attention
of all architects to it so that correct drawings may be made; for once
again have I been convinced that tradition is untrustworthy. Palladio,
on whom I relied, gives us, it is true, a picture of this temple, but
he cannot have seen it, as he actually places pedestals on the level
whereby the columns are thrown up too high, and we have an ugly
Palmyrian monstrosity instead of what is a tranquil, charming object,
satisfying to both the eye and the understanding. It is impossible to
describe the deep impression I received from the contemplation of this
edifice, and it will produce everlasting fruit."[104]
S. PAOLO[105]
A little off the Piazza della Minerva is the old Benedictine church
dedicated to St. Paolo, erected in 1074, when it probably stood alone
with its monastery and not, as now, wedged in with other houses.
Built in the very heart of Roman Assisi, its foundations rest upon
solid walls of travertine, where a secret passage reaches to the
castle. In this part of the town there are several underground
passages spreading out in various directions, reminding us of the
insecurity of life in the early times when Pagan consuls persecuted
the weaker Christian sect. Just within the doorway of the church, now
alas thickly coated with whitewash, is an ionic column belonging to
some building of importance which must have stood within the Forum.
Few people visit S. Paolo as it is only mentioned in local
guide-books, and the passing stranger is generally told that there is
nothing to see which is borne out by the modesty of its exterior; but
no lover of the early Umbrian school who has the time to spare should
fail to step in, if only for a moment, as on a wall to the left of the
entrance is a large fresco by Matteo da Gualdo. He has signed the date
in the corner--1475--though not his name, but it would be difficult to
mistake so characteristic a work of this delightful painter. The
Virgin, tall and stately, is accompanied by St. Lucy, who holds her
eyes upon a dish and is clothed in a richly coloured orange gown
falling in heavy folds about her; on the other side is St. Ansano, the
patron of the Sienese, looking in his elegant green jacket, trimmed
with fur, more like a courtier than a holy martyr. He holds his lungs
in one hand, because he is a patron of people suffering from
consumption, but why we know not, as there was nothing in the way he
met his death in the river Arbia by the order of Diocletian to explain
the presence of this strange symbol. He stands in Matteo's fresco very
daintily by the Madonna's side, pointing her out to the small donor
who is seen kneeling in a doorway. The colour is deep, perhaps a
little crude, and if the figures may seem somewhat stiff and their
draperies angular, all such defects are amply redeemed by the small
angels on the arch above, who composedly gaze down upon the Madonna as
they sing and play to her.
PALAZZO PUBBLICO OR PALAZZO COMMUNALE
In the beginning of the thirteenth century the civil affairs of Assisi
had assumed such large proportions that it was found impossible to
transact business in unsheltered quarters of the piazza as had
hitherto been done, and the citizens determined to build a Palazzo
Pubblico. Other towns were rising to municipal importance, notably
Perugia whose palace for her priors proved a beautiful example of a
gothic building, while Assisi was directing all efforts to adorn her
churches. A house was bought belonging to the same Benedictine abbot
of Mount Subasio, who had given the humble dwellings to St. Francis,
and on its site they erected the present municipal palace, which was
enlarged in 1275 and again in the fifteenth century, but it always
remained a humble building with little pretensions to fine
architecture. Here the priors and the consuls ruled the citizens in
the absence of a despot, while in the palace of the Capitano del
Popolo (now the residence of the Carabinieri), whose tower dates from
1276, the council of the citizens met to check the tyranny of the
governing faction. These municipal magnates lived upon opposite sides
of the Piazza, and acted as a drag upon each other in civil matters.
The many small towns, villages and castles which were beneath the yoke
of Assisi in mediaeval times have been represented by a modern artist
in the entrance hall of the Palazzo Pubblico, and are a happy record
of her days of conquest and prosperity, which are duly remembered by
the citizens. There is also a picture by Sermei of St. Francis
blessing Assisi from the plain which, painted in the sixteenth
century, is interesting as a likeness of the town at that time. There
is also a picture of Elias hung upon the wall, intended as a portrait
and not as an object for popular devotion. An effort has been made to
adapt one of the rooms as a gallery of Umbrian art, and a few frescoes
taken from walls and convents and transferred to canvas are preserved
here, giving some idea, notwithstanding their ruined condition, of the
liberal way in which Umbrian artists distributed their work in every
corner of the town. The gateway of S. Giacomo exposed to constant sun,
wind and rain, was yet thought a fitting place for Fiorenzo di Lorenzo
to paint a fresco of a beautiful Madonna. It now looks sadly out of
place in this room of the Municipio with a little paper ticket on the
corner of the canvas marking it as No. 17. The half figures of angels,
No. 23 and No. 24, by Matteo da Gualdo, were taken from the
Confraternity of S. Crispino together with No. 21. From the Chiesa dei
Pellegrini came No. 5, the Madonna and Saints by Ottaviano Nelli of
Gubbio; while No. 6, a Madonna, with angels holding a red damask
curtain behind her, was found at the fountain of Mojano and is
attributed to Tiberio d'Assisi. That mysterious painter L'Ingegno
d'Assisi may be the author of No. 12. Vasari recounts how he learnt
his art in the workshop of Perugino in company with Raphael, and even
helped his master in the Cambio frescoes. His real name was Andrea
Aloisi, the nickname of Ingegno arising from the fact that he was
looked up to by his fellow citizens as a very remarkable man, for not
only could he paint beautiful Madonnas but he was a distinguished
Procurator, Arbitrator, Syndic and Camerlingo Apostolico. But to try
and trace his work is like following a will-o'-the-wisp, for no sooner
do we hear of a fresco by him than it eventually turns out to be by
Fiorenzo di Lorenzo or by Adone Doni, and this fresco in the Municipio
is the only one in Assisi which may be by him. If it is, Tiberio
d'Assisi would seem to have been his master and not Perugino.
In the same room is a small but interesting painting in fresco (No.
87), the figure of a winged Mercury, which was excavated a few years
ago in the Casa Rocchi, via Cristofani. In another room is the head of
a saint which some believe to be also of Roman times, but a good
authority attributes it to a late follower of Raphael. The saint's
head is seen against a shadowy blue landscape, and like all Umbrian
things has an indescribable charm, a feeling that the artist loved the
valleys in spring-time, and tried to convey some of the soft colour of
the young corn and budding trees into the picture he was painting.
THE CHIESA NUOVA
A little below the Piazza della Minerva is the Chiesa Nuova, built at
the expense of Philip III, of Spain in 1615 by the Assisan artist
Giorgetti and finished in seven years. Few people come to Assisi
without visiting it, for although containing nothing of artistic
value, it stands upon the site of the Casa Bernardone, and recalls
many incidents of St. Francis' life. The small door is shown through
which Madonna Pica passed when the angel disguised as a pilgrim told
her that her son was to be born in a stable, and we see part of the
cell where St. Francis endured such cruel imprisonment from his
father, until his mother in the absence of Messer Pietro let him out
to return to his haunts at San Damiano and the Carceri.[106] Other
places preserve more of the charm of the saint than the Chiesa Nuova.
Two buildings in the town are intimately connected with St. Francis,
his father's shop in the Via Portica the entrance of which the
sculptor of St. Bernardino's door at the franciscan convent has
adorned with a beautiful pattern of flowers, shields and cupids; and
the house of Bernard of Quintavalle which is reached from this street
by the Via S. Gregorio. It is now the Palazzo Sbaraglini and has no
doubt been much enlarged since the thirteenth century, but the little
old door above a flight of steps bears the unmistakable stamp of age;
it leads into a long vaulted room, now a chapel, which there seems
every reason to believe was the one where Bernard, the rich noble,
invited St. Francis to stay with him at a time when he doubted his
sanctity. The story is too long to quote and extracts would only spoil
it, but the pilgrim to Assisi should read it as related in that
franciscan testament, the _Fioretti_ (chap. iii.). Popular devotion
has happily not tampered with this corner of the town as it has with
the house of the Bernardone.
[Illustration: CAMPANILE OF STA. MARIA MAGGIORE]
STA. MARIA MAGGIORE
This romanesque church stands above a Roman building whose columns and
mosaic floor can easily be seen from the garden behind the apse, and
for many centuries it was the cathedral of Assisi as is testified by
its close proximity to the Bishop's palace. But there is now little to
remind us of any pretensions to splendour which it may once have
possessed, only vestiges of the frescoes destroyed by the great
earthquake of 1832 can be seen on its walls, and an Annunciation in a
cupboard of the sacristy--in such strange places do we find an ancient
fresco in Assisi. The church was already an old building in the
twelfth century, for we hear of its being restored and enlarged after
a fire by Giovanni da Gubbio, and finished later by the help of St.
Francis who is said to have rebuilt the apse. One gladly hurries out
of it into the little piazza which, though the humblest looking in
Assisi, is very famous for the scenes it has witnessed. Here St.
Francis renounced the world in the presence of his angry father, and
received protection from Bishop Guido; (see p. 235). Many years later
the dying saint was brought to rest at the Bishop's palace near the
church, and edified those who guarded the gates by singing so gaily in
the midst of terrible suffering. Then again when a quarrel arose
between Guido and the Podesta of Assisi, two friars came up with a
message of peace from St. Francis, then on his deathbed at the
Portiuncula, who had heard with grief of the dissension. The story,
and it is a true one we may be sure, has been faithfully recorded by
Brother Leo, who tells us how "when all were assembled together in the
piazza by the Bishop's palace the two brethren rose up and said: "The
blessed Francis in his illness has composed a canticle to the Lord
concerning His creatures, to the praise of the Lord Himself and for
the edification of the people." It was the verse beginning "Praised be
my Lord for all those who pardon one another for His love's sake,"
which he had added to his Hymn to the Sun (see p. 79). All listened
intently to the message which so touched the heart of the Podesta that
he flung himself at the Bishop's feet and promised to make amends for
his offence for the love of Christ and the Blessed Francis. The Bishop
lifting him from the ground spoke words of forgiveness and peace, and
then "with great kindness and love they embraced and kissed one
another.""
[Illustration: EAST FRONT OF SAN FRANCESCO]
CONVENTS OF S. QUIRICO AND S. APPOLINARE
Every church and convent wall in Assisi was once adorned by frescoes,
and even now, when time and ill-usage have done their best to ruin
them, it is still possible to come upon delightful specimens of
Umbrian art. But they are so stowed away in out of the way corners
that one hardly likes to pass a door, however poor and uninviting,
without glancing in to see what treasure may be hidden away behind it.
Curiosity was amply rewarded one day while visiting the convent of S.
Quirico which we pass on the way from Sta. Maria Maggiore to S.
Pietro, attracted there by the small fresco of the Virgin and St. Anne
by Matteo da Gualdo over the door. The whitewashed parlour contained
nothing of interest, not even a nun peered through the iron grating,
but a murmur from the attendant about frescoes drew us to a window
where, above the brown-tiled roof under a rough pent ledge, exposed to
rain and wind, was a fresco of Christ rising from the tomb, and four
small angels. It is not perhaps one of Matteo da Gualdo's most
pleasing compositions and might be passed unnoticed in a gallery, but
the thought of the wealth of Umbrian art, when masters left their
paintings over gateways upon city walls, and above a roof where even
the nuns can scarcely see it as they walk in the cloister below, give
it a peculiarly Assisan charm which we cannot easily forget. A few
steps further on, down the Borgo San Pietro, is the large convent of
S. Appolinare, remarkable for its pretty campanile of brick, and a
wheel window above the door. It once possessed many frescoes of the
fourteenth and fifteenth century, but now it is not worth while to
seek admittance for they are much destroyed; some have been ruthlessly
cut in two by lowering the ceiling of the rooms, and only here and
there, where the whitewash has peeled off, faces of Madonnas and
saints look out like ghosts imprisoned in a convent wall.
S. PIETRO
The church of S. Pietro stands upon a grass piazza surrounded by
mulberry trees, with a broad outlook upon the valley. The central
door, supported by two lions, has a twisted design of water-plants and
birds which formerly were coloured, but now only show here and there
traces of green stalks on a dark red background. A finely carved
inscription above it records that in the year 1218 the cistercian
Abbot Rustico built the facade, but its proud historians believe the
church itself to have existed in the second century, thus claiming for
it the honour of being the first church erected in Assisi. The present
building cannot be older than 1253 when it was rebuilt after a great
fire, and consecrated by Innocent IV. The interior is finely
proportioned, and the remains of ancient frescoes discovered upon the
walls show the zeal of the Assisans in making all their churches, as
well as San Francesco, as beautiful as they could.
[Illustration: CHURCH OF S. PIETRO]
In the small chapel to the left of the high altar are four stencilled
medallions of a hunter with his dogs chasing a stag, besides
symmetrical patterns like those of the nave of the Lower Church of San
Francesco. Over the altar is a signed picture by Matteo da Gualdo (he
was at Assisi in 1458, but the date here is partly effaced), of a
Madonna with a choir of angels, and upon either side St. Peter and the
Assisan martyr St. Vittorino. By standing on the altar steps a fresco
of the Annunciation of the fifteenth century may be seen on the wall
of the sacristy, discovered beneath the usual layer of whitewash some
fifty years ago. The angel's profile, the hair turned back in waves
from the face over the shoulders, is clearly outlined, and shows pale
against the golden light of his wings. But the real treasures of this
church, according to a pious author, are the bones of St. Vittorino,
an Assisan Christian who was the second Bishop of Assisi, and died a
martyr's death in the third century. In 1642 these relics were
deposited in a more suitable marble urn than the one that had
contained them before, during a grand ceremony presided over by a
Baglioni, Bishop of Perugia. Other bones and ashes of some Roman
martyrs were afterwards added which were taken from the cemetery at
Rome by the Abbot of San Pietro "to further enrich his church."
THE CONFRATERNITIES
An enduring mark of St. Francis' influence is seen in the number of
confraternities established in Assisi which, if they have lost many of
their primitive customs, still retain a hold upon the people and are
the great feature of the town. Hardly a day passes without seeing
members either preparing for a service in one of their chapels, or
following a church procession, or carrying the dead along the cypress
walk from Porta S. Giacomo to the cemetery. Clothed in long grey
hooded cloaks, holding lanterns and candles and singing their mediaeval
hymns, these citizens of the nineteenth century belong to Assisi of
the past as much as all her frescoes and early buildings. Their origin
goes back to the middle of the thirteenth century when, out of the
great devotional movement due to St. Francis, arose that strange body
of penitents the Flagellants, who are said to have first appeared in
Perugia, and thence spread throughout Italy.[107] "The movement," says
Dr Creighton, "passed away; but it left its dress as a distinctive
badge to the confraternities of mercy which are familiar to the
traveller in the streets of many cities of Italy." Assisi was among
the first to witness the hordes of fanatics who roamed from town to
town increasing as they passed like a swarm of locusts through the
land, and often at night going forth into the streets clothed in white
garments to dance a dance of the dead, clanging bones together as they
sang. It was inevitable that their passage through Assisi should have
its results, and many brotherhoods were founded; those who had no
chapels of their own met in S. Pietro or S. Maria delle Rose, where
they performed their penances, sometimes, as in the case of the
Battuti (Flagellants), beating themselves as they sang the wild,
love-inspired hymns of Jacopone da Todi, the franciscan poet of
Umbria. Since those days their fervour has taken a more practical
form, and very simple are their services.
[Illustration: CONFRATERNITY OF SAN FRANCESCUCCIO IN VIA GARIBALDI]
The members of _San Francescuccio_, or _Delle Stimate_, ever to and
fro upon some errand of mercy, belong to the most important
confraternity, and own one of the most picturesque chapels in the
towns. When its doors are open during early Mass or Benediction the
sound of prayer and chanting comes across the quiet road, and in the
blaze of candle-light is seen the great Crucifixion of Ottaviano Nelli
(?) in the lunette of the wall above the altar. At other times, the
chapel being so sunk below the level of the road with no windows to
light it, both fresco and the charming groined roof, blue as that of
San Francesco, can with difficulty be seen. The pent roof outside
overshadows some Umbrian frescoes by Matteo da Gualdo recording the
famous miracle of the roses which flowered for St. Francis in the
snow, and which he offered to the Virgin at the Altar of the
Portiuncula. On the wall to the right are some ruined frescoes in
terra-verde by a scholar of Matteo.
Another confraternity in this street is _San Crispino_, which once
possessed a picture by Niccolo Alunno, but that has long since
disappeared, and only faint patches of colour remain above its
gateway. There are many other confraternities, but as they do not all
possess pictures of interest, we only mention three others; and first
of these, the _Oratory of St. Anthony the Abbot_, or _Chiesa dei
Pellegrini_, which every visitor to Assisi ought to visit.[108] After
the Church of San Francesco it is by far the most important sight of
the town; a Lombard facade, a Roman temple, or a mediaeval castle,
delightful and beautiful as they are, may be seen elsewhere, but we
know nothing with such individual charm as the little chapel of St.
Anthony, in the Via Superba. So often a hundred vicissitudes arrested
the adornment of a building during those troubled times of the middle
ages, but here we find a small and perfectly proportioned oratory
decorated with frescoes upon the ceiling and upon every wall, by two
Umbrian masters who have sought to make it a complete and perfect
sanctuary of Umbrian art.
Built in 1431 by the piety of the brotherhood of St. Anthony the
Abbot, it served as a private chapel to the adjoining hospital, where
pilgrims coming to pray at the shrine of St. Francis found food and
shelter for three days. The liberal donations given by Guidantonio,
Duke of Urbino and sometime Lord of Assisi, whose devotion to the
saint was great, may have enabled the confraternity to adorn it with
its many frescoes. Outside, in the arched niche above the door, are
the patrons of the chapel, St. Anthony and St. James of Campostello,
that great saint of pilgrims, with a frieze of small angels above them
playing upon various instruments, also by Matteo da Gualdo. To him we
owe the fair Madonna over the altar who gazes so dreamily before her,
and sits so straight upon her throne. Angels gather round bending
towards their instruments with earnest faces; Matteo's angels can
never only calmly pray, they must sing or else play on tambourines,
viole d'amore, cymbals and organs. Less pleasing are the large figures
of St. James and St. Anthony, while in contrast to them are the
slender winged figures on either side bearing tall candelabra, and
moving forward with such stately step, their white garments sweeping
in long folds behind them, their fair curls just ruffled by the air.
Surely Matteo must have been thinking of a group of babies at play in
the cornfields, or under the hedges near his own Umbrian town, when he
painted that frieze of laughing children, with little caps fitting so
closely round their heads, who are tossing the branches of red and
white roses up into the air. Each one is different, and all are full
of graceful movement. They divide the frescoes below from that of the
Annunciation, which recalls the manner of Boccatis da Camerino, the
master of Matteo. He paints a swallow, the bird of returning spring,
perched outside the Virgin's bedroom, to symbolise the promise of
redemption, and a lion cub meant to represent the lion of Judah walks
leisurely towards the Madonna.
Matteo da Gualdo, as the inscription tells, worked here in 1468, and
Pier Antonio da Foligno, known as Mezzastris, came in 1482 to paint
the rest of the chapel, and upon the right wall he related the most
famous of St. James' miracles in a naive and delightful manner. The
legends tell how in the time of Pope Calixtus II, a certain German
with his wife and son on their way to the saint's Spanish shrine of
Campostello lodged at Tolosa, where their host's daughter fell in love
with the fair young German. But he, being a cautious youth, resisted
every advance of the Spanish maiden, who sought to avenge herself by
hiding a silver drinking cup belonging to her father in his wallet.
The theft was discovered, and the judge of Tolosa condemned the young
pilgrim to be hanged. Pier Antonio has painted the scene when the
father and mother, after visiting Campostello, return to take a last
look at the place where their son was executed and find him well: "O
my mother! O my father!" he says, "do not lament for me, as I have
never been in better cheer, the blessed Apostle James is at my side,
sustaining me and filling me with celestial joy and comfort." In the
fresco near the altar the story is continued; the judge, stout and
imposing as one of Benozzo Gozzoli's Florentine merchants, is seated
at a table in crimson and ermine robes surrounded by his friends, when
the pilgrim and his wife arrive and beg him to release their son.
Somewhat bored at being interrupted at his banquet he mocks them,
saying: "What meanest thou, good woman? Thou art beside thyself. If
thy son lives so do these fowls before me." No sooner had he spoken
than, to the astonishment of all, the cock and hen stood up on the
dish and the cock began to crow, as we see in Mezzastris' fresco. On
the opposite wall are miracles of St. Anthony. In the fresco near the
door he is sitting in the porch of the church surrounded by his
companion hermits; they are watching the arrival of camels which, in
answer to the saint's prayer, have brought a supply of food neatly
corded on their backs. The artist has pictured the desert with sandy
mountains, little flowers growing in the burning sand and thick grass
in the wood by the convent. In the second fresco St. Anthony, beneath
a portico of lapis lazzuli and green serpentine, is distributing the
food brought by the friendly camels, to the beggars, who appear as
suddenly upon the scene as the beggars do in an Assisan street.
The four figures in the ceiling, Pope Leo III, St. Bonaventure, St.
Isidor of Seville and St. Augustine, and the angels with shield-shaped
wings, are also by Mezzastris. A graceful piece of his work is the
Christ above the door, in a glory of angels who form a wreath around
Him with their wings like sheaves of yellow wheat. Delightful, but
very different from Matteo's, are the cupid-angels flying across the
sky on clouds, and the two seated playing with a shield upon which is
painted the pilgrim's scallop-shell.
[Illustration: MONTE FRUMENTARIO IN THE VIA PRINCIPE DI NAPOLI]
The figure of St. James near the door is of small interest, being a
much restored work of a pupil of Perugino; but in the dark corner on
the other side is, says Mr Berenson, a youthful work of Fiorenzo di
Lorenzo. It is the young St. Ansano holding his lungs suspended
daintily from one finger as in the fresco of S. Paolo, and looking so
charming in his page's dress, his fair curls falling about his
shoulders. He stands at the entrance of a cave with pointed rocks
above, and saxifrage and ferns delicately drawn are growing in their
crevices. Would that Mezzastris had given his pupil a larger space of
wall to work on, so that we might have had more saints and landscapes
like these. We leave the chapel with regret, giving one last look at
Matteo's Madonna and his frieze of child-angels, and then go out into
the long broad Via Principe di Napole. Its fine palaces, once the
abode of some of the richest nobles of the town, have now been turned
into schools and hospitals, and our thoughts once more revert to the
past days of prosperity and magnificence as we walk along this grand
but silent street where the grass grows unmolested between the stones.
A little way further on to the right is the fine _loggia_ of the
_Monte Frumentario_ which in olden times was an agricultural Monte di
Pieta, where the peasants who had no other possessions than the
produce of the fields would come to pawn their grain in time of need.
The door is finely sculptured, and the delicate chiselling of the
capitals of the pillars of the _loggia_ mark it as a work of the
fourteenth century. Not far from the Chiesa dei Pellegrini, but to the
left, stands one of the oldest Assisan houses which does not seem to
have suffered much alteration since it was built. It was the lodge of
the Comacine guild of workers, who have left their sign of the rose
between the compass over the entrance, and two pieces of sculpture,
showing that those to whom the house belonged were people who worked
at some trade. It does not appear to have been a dwelling-house, but
only a place where the members of the guild, employed in building the
different civil and religious buildings for the Assisans, could meet
together to discuss their interests, draw out their plans and execute
different pieces of their work. They probably did not build the house,
but perhaps in the year 1485, which is the date above the door,
adapted for their use one already standing.[109] It is always pointed
out as the _Casa di Metastasio_, but his paternal dwelling is a less
interesting house, standing at the angle of Via S. Giacomo and Via S.
Croce, which can be reached from the Comacine Lodge by the steep
by-street of S. Andrea. Metastasio, though the Trapassi were Assisans,
had little to do with the town as his family were engaged in trade at
Rome, where he was born in 1698. There he was found improvising songs
to a crowd of wondering people by the celebrated Vincenzo Gravina, who
adopted and educated him. When set to music, Metastasio's poetry
brought all Rome to his feet and earned him the title of Caesarean poet
from the Emperor Charles VI; he ended his life at the court of Vienna
as the favourite of Maria Theresa, honoured by all the great musicians
of the day. Truly he has little to do with Assisi, yet he must be
added to the list of her numerous illustrious citizens.
[Illustration: HOUSE OF THE COMACINE BUILDERS IN THE VIA PRINCIPE DI
NAPOLE]
Following the street by the Casa di Metastasio, we get into
delightful lanes above the town and reach another little
confraternity, the oldest of all, _San Rufinuccio_.[110] Its small
chapel, built of alternate layers of pink and white Subasian stone, is
a very characteristic example of an Umbrian way-side sanctuary, always
open in the olden days for the peasants to come into for rest and
prayer. It is worth a visit, not only because the way there is
beautiful, but also for the grand Crucifixion painted above the altar
by the decorator of St. Nicholas' Chapel in San Francesco. It is a
strong and splendid composition, which even much repainting has been
unable to destroy. Unfortunately the scenes at the sides can only just
be seen. Below, the half-length Madonna and angels by another artist
recall the Annunciation of S. Pietro, in the marked outline of their
pale faces and the rainbow colour of clothes and wings.
Turning off from the Via Nuova to the left we mount still higher
through the olive groves along a path possessing no name, but which is
the nicest way to the heights above the town. We come in a few minutes
to the confraternity of _San Lorenzo_, standing somewhat below the
level of the castle. It has nothing of interest inside, but behind the
wooden covering of the gateway at the side is a fresco by an unknown
Umbrian artist, an Assisan perhaps, who above the Virgin's throne
signs himself "Chola Pictor." He paints the faces of his saints with a
smooth surface, betraying the influence of Simone Martini which he
felt together with many of his fellow Umbrian artists. The Virgin's
throne is full of wonderful ornaments; unfortunately the fresco has
suffered from a large crack across the wall. Very quaint is a group of
hooded members of the confraternity at her feet, and there is a
charming figure of St. Rufino, young, with an oval face and brown
eyes, but to be seen only from the top of a ladder as he is painted in
a corner of the arch. It has been suggested to remove this much-ruined
painting to the safer custody of the Municipio, but we hope this will
not occur, for, taken away from its gateway on the hillside, where the
redstarts build their nests and the evening sun lights up the colour
in the Virgin's face, its interest and charm would be lost.
THE CASTLE OR "LA ROCCA D'ASSISI"
Within her city walls Assisi possesses nothing wilder or more
beautiful than the undulating slopes which rise from the city up to
the Castle, where wild orchises grow among the grass, and the hedges
of acacia wind around the hill. The town lies so directly below, that
by stepping to the edge and looking across the white acacias, we can
only see a mass of brown roofs all purple at sundown, the tops of
towers and the battlements of gateways. Then there are places where
the grassy hillocks stand up so high that they hide the town
altogether, and we seem to be looking out upon the broad vista of the
valley from an isolated peak. At all times it is beautiful; but choose
a stormy day in springtime, when the clouds are driving upwards from
the plain only lately covered with mist, and the nearer hills are dark
their cities catching the late evening sunshine as it breaks through
the storm, while wind-swept Subasio looks bleak in the white light
showing here and there patches of palest green. And behind us,
cresting the hill, so near the town yet seen absolutely alone and
clear against the sky, rise the tower and the vast walls of the Rocca
d'Assisi, looking, not like a ruin crumbling beneath the constant
driving of wind and rain, but as though torn down in war-time, grand
in its destruction. It stands upon the site of an ancient burial
ground, where in remote times the Umbrian augurs came to watch for
omens from the heights of a tower that is said to have crowned the
summit. The legend of this building gave rise to the belief that a
castle stood here in very early times which was taken by Totila when
he besieged Assisi. But it is more probable that when Charlemagne
rebuilt the town in 733 after it had been destroyed by his army, he
also erected a castle to enable the Papal emissaries to keep the
people in subjection; or perhaps the citizens themselves may have
wished to protect themselves more securely from passing armies (see p.
16). It ended by becoming, much to the displeasure of the people the
residence of whoever held Assisi for the time, and in the twelfth
century they experienced the despotic rule of Conrad of Suabia, who
lived here with his young charge, Frederic II. When, by the superior
power of the Pope, Conrad was driven out of Umbria, the citizens did
their best to destroy the walls which had harboured a tyrant, and to
avoid further tyranny they obtained an edict forbidding the erection
of another fortress. But promises such as these were vain indeed, for
when, in 1367, escaping from the hated yoke of the Perugians Assisi
welcomed Cardinal Albornoz in the Pope's name as her ruler, she lent a
willing ear to his plans for rebuilding the castle. The people were
well satisfied as they watched the improvements he made in the town,
and two centuries had so dimmed the remembrances of Conrad's tyranny,
that they gladly assisted him, little deeming that they were giving
away their liberty. Albornoz, not slow to perceive what a valuable
possession it would prove to the rulers of Assisi, spared neither
money nor efforts to make it large and strong. By his orders the
castle keep, which we see to this day, called the "maschio," and the
squarely-set walls enclosing it were erected, and in a very few years
the Rocca again rose proudly on its hill, warning the Umbrian people
of its newly-found importance, and enticing passing _condottieri_ to
lay siege to a town that offered so fine a prize. Albornoz also
rebuilt most of the city walls which had been so battered during the
Perugian wars; we can trace them from gateway to gateway encircling
the city, and it is curious to see how in the upper portion near San
Rufino large open spaces exist, as if in those active days when the
Assisans had hopes of becoming powerful, they purposely set the walls
far back to provide for a large and flourishing town. The feeling of
arrested growth is one of the most mournful spectacles, and we half
wonder if the great castle dominating the heights was not in part the
cause of it. There was war enough at the time, inevitable among the
restless factions of a people groping towards freedom and power, but
here above the town was placed a fresh cause of dissension and
struggle against perpetual bondage through varied tyrannies.
Albornoz, in planning out the city walls, discovered that the part
between Porta Cappuccini and Porta Perlici, where the hill descends
towards the ravine, needed protection, so he built the strong fortress
of San Antonio known as the Rocca Minore. It had a separate governor
or Castellano, and though of minor importance, proved very efficient
in repelling the attacks of besieging armies. The principal tower,
though somewhat ruined, still looks very fine within its square
enclosure of massive walls, now covered in places with heavy curtains
of ivy, the home of countless birds. A pious Castellano in the
fifteenth century left a fresco of the Crucifixion in the chapel with
his portrait at the foot of the Cross, and as we look at it through
the wooden gateway we are reminded of what otherwise from the deserted
look of the place it is easy to forget, that people once lived and
prayed at the Rocca as well as fought.
[Illustration: LOOKING ACROSS THE ASSISAN ROOFS TOWARDS THE EAST]
Cardinal Albornoz left the castle in charge of two Assisan captains,
but from 1376 an uninterrupted line of governors received their
salaries from whoever was master of Assisi at the time. Always chosen
from other towns their privileges were quite distinct from those of
the civil governors; but in the fifteenth century, owing to the
weakness of the Priors, who failed to keep order among the lawless
nobles of the town, their power increased. The Papal Legate then gave
into the hands of the Castellano authority to issue edicts which the
Priors had to obey, and in 1515 he was invested with the title of
Podesta and Pretor of Assisi. But none of these governors seems to
have misused their power over the town, probably because their rule
was of too short a duration to carry out any ambitious scheme. And
when the despot for the time being of Assisi came to stay, he took up
his quarters in the castle, ruling governors, magistrates and people
alike. In the time of the despot Broglia di Trino, we hear of the
Priors wearily toiling up the steep ascent to place before him the
acts they had passed in the municipal palace. He received them always
in the open air, holding his councils either in the first enclosure by
the well, or in the second by the castle keep, where many important
conclusions were arrived at, and plans for the city's dominion laid
out.
So perfect is the harmony of the castle from wherever it is seen, that
it is difficult to realise how many hands have formed it, how many
times its walls have been battered down and rebuilt at different
periods by popes, cardinals, and passing _condottieri_, who have
nearly all left their arms upon its walls as a record of their
munificence. After Albornoz had built the principal mass of
fortifications little was done until 1458, when Jacopo Piccinino, the
son of the great general, entered Assisi as master, and obtained
immediate possession of the Rocca. His reign was short, but with the
quick eye of a soldier he soon discovered the weakness of the western
slope, and seeing that it might be carried by assault from Porta San
Giacomo, he laid the foundations of a polygonal tower and a long wall
connecting it with the main building. The Comacine builders
established in Assisi were employed and left their sign, the rose
between the compass and the mason's square, upon its lower walls. But
long before the work was half completed Piccinino sold the city to the
Pope, and it was AEneas Piccolomini, Pius II, who, when he visited
Assisi in 1459, ordered it to be brought to a termination; within a
year the wall was raised to its full height, the tower received its
battlements and the arms of the Piccolomini were placed above those of
Piccinino. The covered gallery, running along the top of the wall from
the castle, still leads the visitor to the giddy heights of the tower
whence he obtains truly a bird's-eye view of all the country round,
from Spoleto to Perugia, across range upon range of hills towards
Tuscany, and from Bettona to the wild tract of mountainous country
leading to Nocera, Gualdo and Gubbio.
To recount the full history of the castle needs a book to itself, and
would include not only the history of Assisi but almost of all
Umbria.[111] The possession of the Rocco Maggiore entailed that of the
Rocca Minore and gave undisputed sway over Assisi, so that the
desperate efforts made to hold it can be understood. During the
intervals when Papal authority was relaxed, we find the names of many
famous people whose armies fought for this much contested prize.
Biordo Michelotti, Count Guido of Montefeltro, the two Piccininos,
Francesco Sforza and Gian Galeazzo Visconti, were in succession its
owners. Cosmo de' Medici obtained it from Pope Eugenius IV, in payment
of a bad debt, and a Florentine governor ruled over it for a year. It
even, together with the town of Assisi, became the property of
Lucrezia Borgia, who received it from Alexander VI, as part of her
dower on her marriage with Giovanni Sforza, Lord of Pesaro. Sometimes
it happened that a private citizen of Perugia conceived the ambitious
scheme of making himself master of the castle, and by fraud the
Castellano would be enticed outside the gates and murdered with his
family. But it always ended by Perugia, fearing the wrath of the Pope,
or not liking one of their own citizens to gain so much power, sending
an army to dislodge the tyrant, who soon lost his head. Sometimes
criminals were kept imprisoned in the castle; we can still see the
room in the keep where they scratched their names upon the wall, with
many references to their horror of the place, and a roughly traced
heart pierced with an arrow. Ordinary malefactors were shut up in a
dark cell on the stairs. When their crimes merited death they were
executed on the Piazza della Minerva, or if time pressed, the
Castellano hanged them from the battlements of the fortress or threw
them out of a window into the ravine below. The governors had a
difficult and not a very peaceful time, for they had not only to guard
against outside foes, but occasionally against a faction who attempted
to get possession of the castle, and great on those occasions was the
fight outside its walls. It was in vain that they took every
precaution for the general safety, that a night guard walked up and
down the Assisan streets playing his castanets to warn off all
evil-doers, or that men-at-arms watched incessantly from the castle
battlements. In the sixteenth century the castle became a prey to the
rival families of the Nepis and the Fiumi who divided Assisi between
them. First it fell into the hands of Jacopo Fiumi and the Pope,
Alexander VI, furious when he heard of this citizen's audacious act,
wrote that "by love or by force" he would have his fortress back
again; but Jacopo remained impervious to threats or promises and held
out for another year, until the Priors fearing the anger of the Pope
came to an agreement with him. Some thirty years later the Nepis
obtained possession of it by treachery and violence, and it required
all the astuteness of Malatesta Baglione, who was fighting for Clement
VII, to dislodge them, while the Pope branded them and their adherents
as "sons of iniquity" for having dared to wrest from the Papacy the
castle of Assisi.
[Illustration: VIEW OF SAN FRANCESCO FROM BENEATH THE CASTLE WALLS]
But the days of the great military importance of the Rocca were fast
drawing to a close; Assisi, no longer oppressed by the nobles,
harassed by the armies of Perugia, or alarmed by the coming of the
despots whose power was on the wane all over Italy, lost her character
of individuality as a fighting and turbulent city, and sank beneath
the wise and beneficent government of the Papacy. With the arrival of
Paul III, in 1535, the final blow was given to mediaeval usages of war
and scheming in Umbria. The great Farnese Pope was building his
fortress at Perugia to finally crush that hitherto indomitable people,
and fearing the Assisans might yet give trouble in the future to his
legates as they had so often done in the past, he gave orders that the
fortress should be repaired, and a bastion suitable for the more
modern methods of warfare be built to the right of the castle keep.
This is now the best preserved portion of the building. For some time
a Castellano still remained in command of the castle but his title was
purely a nominal one, and his chief duty seems to have consisted in
guarding prisoners. Its political need having disappeared the popes
thought less of their Assisan fortress, the one lately erected at
Perugia being more efficient as a safeguard of their interests, and
gradually its walls showed signs of decay, but no papal legates were
sent to see to their repair. So terribly did it suffer during the
years that followed the reign of Paul III, that in 1726 we read of the
governor of the city sending an earnest supplication to the Pope that
"this strong and ancient castle of Assisi, which had always been the
chief fortress of Umbria, should be saved from ruin." The Pope, he
tells us in another letter, had already sent Count Aureli, the
military governor of Umbria, to inspect it, who declared it was "one
of the strongest and most splendid fortresses of the ecclesiastical
states, and as fine as any he had seen in France or in Flanders, when
as head page he had accompanied Louis XIV." In the same document there
is mention also of beautiful paintings in the chief rooms, and of a
miraculous Crucifixion in the chapel, but these decorations, needless
to say, have long since disappeared. Entreaties were vainly sent to
Rome; the castle was so utterly abandoned that its gates stood open
for all to roam in and out as they pleased, pulling down the ancient
arms of the popes, and vying with the storms to complete its ruin and
destruction. Such was its strength that it endured the ill-treatment
of seasons and of men, and people now alive remember in their youth to
have seen it still roofed in and possessing much of its former
magnificence. A little money might have restored it to its pristine
state, but during those years of struggle for the Unity of Italy the
general fever of excitement invaded the quiet town, and as if
remembering all the tyrants their castle walls had harboured, and the
skirmishes their ancestors had fought beneath them, the citizens
continued its destruction with renewed vigour. It was no uncommon
thing to see cartloads of stones being taken down the hill for the
construction of some modern dwelling, or boys amusing themselves by
throwing down portions of the walls, and trying who could succeed in
making great blocks of masonry reach the bed of the torrent below.
Luckily the government gave it over to the commune of Assisi in 1883
and they did something towards its repair, though within certain
limits, for a large sum would have been necessary to complete its
restoration.
But it still remains a very wonderful corner of Assisi, and delightful
hours may be passed sitting in the castle keep and looking out of the
large windows upon a land so strangely peaceful, with little cities
gathered on the hills or lying by some river in the plain. We see the
battered walls around us bearing traces of ancient warfare, and wonder
at the power which made the mediaeval turmoil so suddenly subside. In
vain we scan the valley for the coming of a warlike cardinal with
glittering horsemen in his rear, or look for Gian Paolo Baglione
riding hastily through the town upon his swift black charger. The
communal armies met for the last time by the Tiber many centuries ago;
popes, emperors, _condottieri_ and saints have passed like pageants
across Umbria, and as if touched by a magician's wand have as suddenly
vanished, leaving her cities with only the memories of an active and
glorious past. Thus Assisi, with the rest of the smaller towns,
gradually sank as a prosperous and governing city though decidedly not
as a place of pilgrimage and prayer, into that deep sleep from which
she has never again awakened.
FOOTNOTES:
[103] Bernhard Berenson, "Central Italian painters of the
Renaissance," p. 86.
[104] Goethe's Werke, _Italiaenische Reise_, I., vol. 27, pp. 184, _et
seq._, J. G. Cotta, 1829.
[105] The key is obtained from the Canonico Modestini's house, No. 27a
Via S. Paolo.
[106] The legend that St. Francis was born in a stable only dates from
the fifteenth century and arose out of the desire of the franciscans
to make his life resemble that of Christ. The site of this stable,
which is now a chapel, is of no interest whatever.
[107] See _Story of Perugia_ (mediaeval series), p. 211, for the legend
of their origin in that town.
[108] The chapel is also called the _Chiesa di S. Caterina_ because
the members of that confraternity have charge of it. It is often open,
but should it be closed, there is always some one about ready to
obtain the key from the house in the same street Via Superba, now Via
Principe di Napoli, No. 12, opposite Palazzo Bernabei.
[109] See Signor Alfonso Brizi's _Loggia dei Maestri Comacini in
Assisi_, No. 1, April 185, of the _Atti dell' Accademia Properziana
del Subasio in Assisi_.
[110] Both the key of _San Rufinuccio_ and _San Lorenzo_ can be
obtained through the sacristan of the Cathedral.
[111] This work has been admirably done by Signor Alfonso Brizi. In
his _Rocca d'Assisi_, published in 1898, he has given a very
interesting account of its many rulers and vicissitudes, and a full
description of the building, together with all the documents relating
to it.