Sanctuary of Assisi

A chapel on the plain below Assisi

The sanctuary is not in the upper town of Assisi, clinging to the flank of Mount Subasio, but below, on the plain of the Tescio valley, about four kilometres from the historic centre.^[3] In Francis's time it was only a marshy wood with a small isolated chapel, far from roads and gazes. It was this humble solitude that the Poverello sought: a poor place, apart, in keeping with his ideal of detachment.^[4]

Over the centuries, an entire town grew up around the sanctuary: the locality of Santa Maria degli Angeli, today the most populous of Assisi's frazioni, owes its very existence and name to the basilica at its centre.^[5] The pilgrimage quite literally raised a city on the plain.

The name: “the little portion”

The word Portiuncula — in Italian Porziuncola — means “little portion [of land]”.^[6] It originally designated the tiny plot on which the chapel stood, property of the Benedictine monks. The chapel itself bore the title of Saint Mary of the Angels: it is from this double name — the place-name Porziuncola and the Marian dedication Santa Maria degli Angeli — that the full name of the sanctuary and the town derives.^[7]

A Benedictine chapel of Our Lady of the Angels

Tradition traces the little chapel back to the 4th–6th century; in the Middle Ages it belonged to the Benedictine monks of Mount Subasio (abbey of San Benedetto).^[8] Fallen into ruin, it was almost abandoned when the young Francis Bernardone, in the first years of his conversion, undertook to rebuild it with his own hands, as he had already restored San Damiano and San Pietro della Spina.^[9]

The restoration by Francis (c. 1208)

It was around 1208, on hearing at the Portiuncula the Gospel of the sending of the disciples (Mt 10), that Francis understood the call to radical evangelical poverty.^[10] The Benedictines granted him the use of the chapel; as a sign of the absolute poverty he wished to keep, Francis refused to become its owner and insisted on paying each year a symbolic rent — a basket of fish — marking that the friars owned nothing of their own.^[11] The Portiuncula became the centre of the young movement: Francis always returned there, and he made it the spiritual heart of the order.

The cradle of the Franciscan order

Thomas of Celano, Francis's first biographer, stresses the saint's unique attachment to this place: it was there, he writes in substance, that everything humbly began, progressed and was happily accomplished, and Francis commended this place to the friars at the hour of his death as the dearest to the Virgin.^[12]

It was there that the nascent fraternity gathered, that Saint Clare came, on the night of Palm Sunday 1212 (the night of 18–19 March 1212), to receive the religious habit from Francis's hands — the starting point of the order of the Poor Ladies — and that the first general chapters were held.^[13][14] For the full account of these lives, see Saint Francis of Assisi and Saint Clare of Assisi; here we retain only that the whole order sprang from this little portion of land.

If the Portiuncula is a great pilgrimage sanctuary, it is above all because of a spiritual grace attached to the place: the Pardon of Assisi (Perdono di Assisi), also called the Portiuncula indulgence.^[15]

The vision of 1216

According to Franciscan tradition, one night in 1216, Francis, at prayer in the Portiuncula, received a vision of Christ and the Virgin surrounded by angels.^[16] The Lord asked him what he desired for the salvation of souls; Francis begged for a plenary indulgence for all those who, repentant and confessed, would come to pray in this chapel. The grace was granted to him, on condition that it be confirmed by the pope.

Tradition reports that Francis, in tears, then announced to the pilgrims that he wanted to send them all to Paradise.^[17]

The pontifical confirmation of Honorius III

Francis went at once to Pope Honorius III, then at Perugia, to obtain confirmation of the indulgence.^[18] The pope granted the privilege and fixed its date at 1–2 August. Tradition relates that, as Francis was leaving, the pope asked him for how many years this indulgence should last; Francis answered that he was not asking for years, but for souls.^[19] The concession was very early attested by the bishops of Umbria in a document of 1310, and the feast has been celebrated without interruption since the Middle Ages.^[20]

An indulgence without money

What made the Pardon of Assisi extraordinary for its time is that it offered a wholly free plenary indulgence, at a time when great indulgences were tied to crusades, Roman jubilees or costly works.^[21] The only conditions were spiritual: contrition, sacramental confession, communion, prayer for the Pope's intentions, and the visit to the chapel.^[22] The Pardon of the Portiuncula was thus one of the first plenary indulgences accessible to all, with no condition of fortune or distant travel.

2 August, “toties quoties”

The feast of the Pardon culminates on 2 August. On that day — and, by later extensions, from noon on 1 August to the evening of the 2nd — the plenary indulgence may be gained “toties quoties”, that is as many times as one visits the Portiuncula (or, by a later granted extension, any Franciscan or parish church) under the required conditions.^[23] This grace draws crowds of pilgrims each year to the plain of Assisi and remains the sanctuary's great spiritual raison d'être.

The decision of Pius V

For three and a half centuries, the Portiuncula remained an isolated chapel, surrounded by a few Franciscan buildings. In the 16th century, the influx of pilgrims come to gain the Pardon made necessary a vast edifice able to shelter them and protect the sacred chapels. In 1569, Pope Pius V ordered the construction of a great basilica intended to “worthily guard” the Portiuncula, the Transito chapel and the rose garden.^[24]

Alessi, Vignola and the choice of humility

The plans were entrusted to the Perugian architect Galeazzo Alessi (1512–1572), one of the great Mannerist masters of his time, with the collaboration of Giacomo Barozzi, known as Vignola (1507–1573).^[25][26] The worksite, begun in 1569, lasted more than a century and was completed only in 1679.^[27] The architectural approach is remarkable: despite its colossal dimensions, the interior was deliberately treated with sobriety, in three bare naves, so as not to crush the little stone chapel placed beneath the dome.^[28] The great church is but an architectural reliquary: everything converges toward the Portiuncula, left intact at the centre.

Dimensions and dome

The basilica follows a Latin-cross plan with three naves.^[29] It measures about 126 metres long and 65 metres wide; its dome (designed by Alessi and Vignola), completed in 1680, rises to about 75 metres in height.^[30] These proportions make it one of the largest churches in the world — a unique case of an immense vessel built entirely to enclose a tiny chapel. The dome and the apse are today the only parts surviving as Alessi and Vignola conceived them, the rest having been rebuilt after the 1832 earthquake.^[31]

The collapse (15 December 1832)

On 15 December 1832, a violent earthquake struck the valley of Assisi. The central nave of the basilica collapsed and the dome was badly cracked.^[32] By a coincidence venerated as a protection, the Portiuncula, placed just beneath the dome, remained intact amid the rubble — a detail that lastingly impressed contemporaries.

Luigi Poletti (1836–1840)

The reconstruction was entrusted to the Roman architect Luigi Poletti, who directed the works from 1836.^[33] The basilica, raised again respecting Alessi and Vignola's plan for the dome and apse, was reopened for worship on 8 September 1840, feast of the Nativity of the Virgin.^[34] The naves were rebuilt, the dome consolidated, and the edifice recovered its function as a great welcoming vessel for the pilgrims of the Pardon.

The Bazzani façade and the gilded Madonna (1924–1930)

The present appearance of the façade dates neither from the 16th nor the 19th century, but from 1924–1930: the architect Cesare Bazzani gave it its neo-Baroque monumentality, for the seventh centenary of Saint Francis's death (1926).^[35] At the top of the pediment was erected, in 1930, a statue of the Virgin in gilded bronze — the Madonna degli Angeli — the work of the sculptor Guglielmo Colasanti.^[36] Gilded with gold leaf, it shines in the plain's sunlight and signals the Marian sanctuary from afar: Our Lady of the Angels watches over the chapel of her Poverello.

The stone chapel

Beneath the dome, standing alone in the middle of the great nave, rises the Portiuncula: a small stone edifice of the Trecento, about four metres by seven, whose outer walls are partly clad in pink and white marble.^[37] Its extreme modesty, at the centre of a 126-metre vessel, produces a striking contrast: that is the whole meaning of the sanctuary — the great at the service of the small, gold at the service of poverty.

The polyptych of Ilario da Viterbo (1393)

Inside, above the altar, the altarpiece is a polyptych painted in 1393 by Ilario da Viterbo, depicting the Annunciation and the scenes of the Pardon of the Portiuncula: Francis's vision, his request to Christ, the confirmation by the pope.^[38] It is one of the oldest pictorial sources of the Pardon tradition. A painted crucifix, attributed to Perugino (c. 1496), completes the early décor.^[39]

The Overbeck fresco

The outer façade of the chapel is adorned with a large fresco painted around 1829–1830 by the German painter Friedrich Overbeck, leading figure of the Nazarene movement.^[40] It depicts Francis receiving from Christ and the Virgin the promise of the indulgence — a Romantic and devout composition that today greets the gaze of pilgrims entering the basilica.

The cell of Francis's death (1226)

Behind the Portiuncula, toward the apse, is preserved the small infirmary cell where Saint Francis died on the evening of 3 October 1226.^[41] It is today the Transito chapel (Cappella del Transito): one of the most moving places in the sanctuary, for tradition places there the moment when the saint, lying naked on the earth, welcomed “Sister bodily death” singing.

The last stanza of the Canticle of the Creatures, added as his death approached, praises the Lord for “Sister bodily death”, whom no living person can escape — a paraphrase, English translations varying by edition.^[42]

The Andrea della Robbia statue

At the centre of the chapel stands a statue of Saint Francis in polychrome glazed terracotta, the work of Andrea della Robbia (c. 1475–1490), showing him holding the Gospel and the cross, as a preacher still pointing the Way.^[43] The outer walls of the cell were decorated in the 19th century by the Perugian painter Domenico Bruschi, who depicted there the Death of Saint Francis and the Recognition of the Stigmata, while the interior keeps frescoes attributed to lo Spagna (Giovanni di Pietro).^[44] The cord of Saint Francis is also venerated there.^[45]

The legend of the thornless rosebush

Beside the basilica lies the rose garden (roseto), tied to one of the most famous episodes of Franciscan tradition. One night, assailed by a violent temptation, Francis is said to have thrown himself into a bramble bush to tame his flesh; at the contact of his body, the thorns disappeared and the brambles turned into thornless rosebushes, so as not to wound him.^[46]

The Rosa canina assisiensis

The marvel left, tradition says, a botanical trace: in this rose garden still grows a variety of briar naturally devoid of thorns, Rosa canina assisiensis, which, it is said, reproduces only in this garden of Assisi.^[47] The fact, often noted by visitors, gives the place part of its popular radiance.

The frescoes of Tiberio d'Assisi

Opening onto the rose garden is the Chapel of the Roses (Cappella delle Rose), built, according to tradition, at the initiative of Saint Bernardino of Siena.^[48] It is adorned with a cycle of frescoes painted around 1506–1518 by Tiberio d'Assisi (Tiberio di Diotallevi), illustrating the scenes of the indulgence of the Pardon and the life of Francis.^[49] These paintings rank among the finest of the early-16th-century Umbrian school.

The Franciscan guardians

From the beginning, the sanctuary has been the house of the Franciscan Friars Minor, today attached to the Seraphic Province of Umbria-Sardinia.^[50] A permanent community ensures there the guardianship of the Portiuncula, the welcome of pilgrims, the daily liturgy and above all the ministry of reconciliation — confession — which lies at the very heart of the vocation of the place, sanctuary of the Pardon. The sanctuary is open every day and many Masses are celebrated there.^[51]

The museum, the fountain and the relics

The complex preserves a Portiuncula museum (Museo della Porziuncola), gathering paintings, liturgical objects and testimonies of Franciscan devotion.^[52] On the parvis, a great fountain known as “of the twenty-six spouts”, offered by the Medici family in 1610, gave drink to pilgrims.^[53] Relics of Saint Francis are also venerated in the basilica, including a fragment of his cord given by Pope Pius IX.^[54]

The town born around the sanctuary

The pilgrimage shaped even the geography: the locality of Santa Maria degli Angeli, on the plain, developed around the basilica to the point of becoming today the principal town of the commune of Assisi.^[55] The sanctuary has remained its absolute centre, around which streets, squares and local life are organised.

Pilgrimages and attendance

With Saint Francis's basilica on the hill and San Damiano, Santa Maria degli Angeli forms one of the three great poles of the Assisi pilgrimage, among the most frequented in Italy. 2 August, the day of the Pardon, and the great Franciscan feasts gather there considerable crowds.^[56] Raised to the rank of patriarchal basilica and papal chapel in 1909, then confirmed as a papal basilica, the church has received the visits of many pilgrim popes come to pray at the Portiuncula.^[57] The sanctuary has also been associated, in the 20th and 21st centuries, with great prayer gatherings in the city of Assisi (see the Assisi meetings).

The sanctuary of Assisi teaches a lesson by its architecture alone: a gigantic basilica built to protect a tiny chapel, the gold of Our Lady of the Angels deployed around Francis's poverty. Everything in this place speaks of the Gospel reversal: it is in the little portion, the abandoned chapel, the bramble bush, the bare cell of death, that God made grow an order that evangelised the world.

This place, Franciscan tradition reports after Thomas of Celano, Francis commended to the friars as dearest of all: it is here that the order began, it is here that it must always return.^[58]

It is what the Friars Minor have offered for eight centuries to those who come down to the plain: not a monument, but a door of pardon. As the tradition of the Pardon of Assisi sums it up, one comes to the Portiuncula for one thing alone — to lay down one's sins there and receive, freely, the mercy Francis had asked for in order to send all to Paradise.^[59]

Related Ignispedia articles

• Saint Francis of Assisi — the life of the founder, for whom the Portiuncula was cradle and spiritual tomb.
• Saint Clare of Assisi — received at the Portiuncula, foundress of the Poor Ladies.
• Sanctuary of Subiaco — Benedictine cradle, the order to which the chapel granted to Francis belonged.
• Why venerate relics? — the Catholic doctrine of veneration, useful for the Transito and Francis's relics.
• Sanctuary of Manoppello and Sanctuary of Mount Carmel — other sanctuaries in the same series.

Main sources

• Visual credits: façade of Santa Maria degli Angeli, photograph published under CC BY-SA 4.0 licence on Wikimedia Commons; Portiuncula in the nave, photograph by Gunnar Bach Pedersen released into the public domain on Wikimedia Commons. The five diagrams are original compositions created for Ignispedia.
• Basilica di Santa Maria degli Angeli, it.wikipedia.org — history, architecture, chronology of the basilica.
• Basilique Sainte-Marie-des-Anges (Assise), fr.wikipedia.org — 1832 earthquake, Poletti reconstruction, Bazzani façade.
• Portioncule, fr.wikipedia.org — Benedictine origin, restoration by Francis, indulgence of the Pardon.
• Basilica Papale di Santa Maria degli Angeli in Porziuncola, visit-assisi.it — inner chapels, Transito, rose garden.
• La Basilica Papale, porziuncola.org — guardian Franciscan community, life of the sanctuary.
• Rose e Perdono : l'origine dell'Indulgenza della Porziuncola, sanfrancescopatronoditalia.it — tradition of the Pardon of Assisi.