Assisi, Diocese of

ASSISI, Diocese of. - In Umbria, in the province of Perugia, it has an area of 352.17 sq km with a population of 34,653 inhabitants, all Catholics, distributed among 36 parishes with 54 secular priests and 102 regular priests, 11 male religious houses and 24 female, a diocesan seminary and the Umbrian regional seminary (1948).

A., halfway between Perugia and Foligno, was built on the limestone spur of Mt. Subasio, which dominates the plain furrowed by the Topino and the Chiascio. The birthplace of the Latin poet Propertius, A. was during the imperial period a flourishing Roman municipality (Asisium) of which monumental remains still survive. In the time of the barbarian invasions it barely escaped complete destruction, but its life became ever more wretched. With the Lombard occupation it formed part of the duchy of Spoleto until the 12th century: this brought it no small harm, since it had to sustain many wars with neighboring Perugia, which for centuries fiercely contested it with the Popes and other lords. In the 13th century its adherence to the Guelph party procured for it a period of truce with Perugia and the benevolence of the Popes, who in 1287 recognized its communal franchises. New struggles between Guelphs and Ghibellines again troubled it, until in 1367, to free itself from the yoke of the Perugians, it gave itself spontaneously to Cardinal Egidio Albornoz. It still had to submit to various lordships, until Paul III (1534-49) definitively reduced the city under pontifical dominion, which lasted until the occupation by the Italian government that took place in the second half of the past century (1860).

A. Harnack, basing himself on the argument from the martyrs, believed he could establish the existence of the diocese of A. before 325. Nevertheless we must note that the existence and the status of bishops and martyrs of the time of the persecutions attributed to Victorinus, to Savinus and to Rufinus himself, patron and protector of A., rest on documents that are little or not at all reliable and that do not go back beyond the 11th century. The first bishop of A. known to us, whose historicity cannot be doubted, is Aventius (a. 547), who was legate of the Ostrogoths to the emperor Justinian. After him, down to the whole of the 800s, we have many gaps, and only around the year 1000 did A. begin to flourish again and live a new life. A small church dedicated to the Virgin served as cathedral until Bishop Ugo (1036-52) rebuilt the primitive little church of S. Rufino which, rebuilt by Giovanni da Gubbio, is today's Cathedral. Besides Ugo, among the bishops particular mention is due to Guido II (1204-28), friend and protector of St. Francis, and Marcello Crescenzi (1591-1630), to whom the present seat of the seminary is owed.

A. is above all to be remembered for its illustrious citizens Francesco di Bernardone (v. FRANCESCO, saint), Chiara (v. CHIARA, saint), respectively founder of the Friars Minor (v.) and progenitrix of the Poor Clares (v.), and St. Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows (v.).

Among the various monasteries or abbeys that existed in the diocese of A., particular mention is due to the abbey of S. Benedetto al Subasio, generally dated to the year 536 (but the first certain notice is from 1041), and the abbey of S. Pietro, whose first certain record likewise goes back to the 11th century, that is, to 1029. At S. Pietro the sons of St. Benedict are still present today, but of both ancient monasteries only remains of the church and the underlying crypt survive (12th century?).

Of greater importance are the Franciscan sanctuaries that have impressed upon A. a character of mysticism and at the same time of grandeur. S. Maria degli Angeli, which began with the Porziuncola donated to St. Francis by the monks of Subasio, became the cradle of the Minorite Order. Its name is linked to the famous Indulgence of the Pardon, implored by the Saint on 2 Aug. 1216, to the Chapter of Mats and to not a few characteristic episodes of early Franciscan history. In a cell near the Porziuncola (chapels of the Transito) St. Francis on 3 Oct. 1226 passed, singing, from earth to heaven. The vast basilica that encloses the two precious relics was declared by Pius X (11 April 1909) a Patriarchal and Papal Basilica, and the Cardinal Protector of the Friars Minor is its Pontifical Legate.

S. Francesco is the grandiose monumental complex that arose on the Colle dell'Inferno, which from then on was called the Colle del Paradiso, to guard the venerated remains of St. Francis. The transfer of the venerated body took place on 25 May 1230, but the consecration of the church was performed by Innocent IV on 20 May 1253.

In 1818 the body of St. Francis was found, which for almost six centuries had remained hidden beneath the altar of the lower church. The crypt was then excavated in the form of a Greek cross, communicating with the lower church by means of two stairways, and there the sacred relic was placed. The present architectural arrangement is due to the architect U. Tarchi. The distinguished monument is jealously guarded by the Conventual Friars Minor.

San Damiano is the sanctuary linked to the memory of St. Clare and her first companions, who made their dwelling there in 1212 and left it in 1257 so as not to be far from the virginal remains of their Mother. Since then the Friars Minor have been there, carefully preserving a true relic of the seraphic life.

S. Chiara is the basilica that preserves the venerated remains of the Saint. The body of St. Clare was transported there on 3 Oct. 1260, but the church was consecrated by Clement IV in 1265. In 1850 the venerated body was found and the crypt excavated where it now rests. In the Basilica is preserved the famous crucifix of S. Damiano (a panel of the 12th century) which is said to have spoken to St. Francis. The Cardinal Protector of the Friars Minor, as for S. Maria degli Angeli, is its Pontifical Legate.

A suggestive place in the surroundings of A. is the hermitage of Le Carceri, on the slopes of Subasio, where St. Francis withdrew to pray. The present small Franciscan convent was erected there by St. Bernardino of Siena in the 15th century.

Precious documents of local history are preserved at the Municipal Library of A., established in 1866 with the libraries of the suppressed convents, particularly with the Library and the historical and musical Archive of the S. Convento. Of lesser importance, but not negligible, are those preserved in the Capitular Archive of S. Rufino, at the Accademia Properziana, at the International Society of Franciscan Studies, founded by Paul Sabatier, and at the Chiesa Nuova.

ART

To the profound significance that A. has in the life of the spirit, the rich artistic production preserved there adds a few notes that are not superfluous, and which, at least for the two centuries of its greatest flowering, the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, may be said to be almost exclusively bound to the glorification of the Franciscan epic.

If from the Roman age A. presents quite remarkable reminders (the Temple of Minerva, today the church of S. Maria sopra Minerva, which dates back to the earliest times of the empire and is one of the best-preserved monuments of classical times, the remains of the Forum, the remnants of a theater, of an amphitheater and of the city walls), nothing remains there — the city having been destroyed by Totila in 545 — from the early Christian period and the early Middle Ages: only some remains in the crypt of S. Rufino can be assigned to the 8th century. This crypt, as an architectural organism, and for its ornamental sculptures and scanty remains of frescoes, documents for us today the reconstruction of the church carried out in 1028 by Bishop Ugone, who raised it to the dignity of cathedral. To the 11th century must also be assigned the abbey of S. Benedetto on Monte Subasio, of which interesting remains survive, and to the end of that same century belongs the suburban church of S. Masseo. The second circuit of walls, which considerably enlarges the Roman one, dates back to the 12th century, while a third enlargement occurs with the third circuit in the fourteenth century.

The cathedral of S. Rufino, beginning in 1144, through the work of Giovanni da Gubbio, was radically transformed, becoming one of the most significant monuments of Romanesque art: preserved on the exterior, unfortunately in the interior it has suffered a radical transformation begun in 1571 by Galeazzo Alessi. The church of S. Maria Maggiore, which bears an indication of the year 1162, seems to be the work of the same Giovanni da Gubbio, and this architect probably also worked on the apse of the church of S. Pietro, which, begun in the 11th century, today presents itself with characteristics deriving above all from the works carried out in the second half of the thirteenth century.

The suburban church of S. Damiano owes in large part to the restoration that St. Francis carried out there in 1207 the appearance it still preserves; to the times of the Saint also date the oldest parts of the Eremo delle Carceri on the slopes of Subasio.

In 1228, not yet two years after the Saint's death, Gregory IX laid the first stone of the double basilica of S. Francesco. The lower church having been built rapidly, a few decades later the upper church was completed: while in the former a dominance of Romanesque proportions is still visible, in the latter Gothic forms triumph, simplified as Italian taste demanded. The adjoining sacred convent rises at the same time as the Basilica, but subsequently undergoes radical transformations. In all probability Brother Elias, the companion and friend of St. Francis, was the first conceiver and the first architect of the marvelous monumental complex, which soon became a model for the Franciscan churches in Italy: at A. we find an imitation of it in the church of S. Chiara, begun in 1257. But one should not believe that the affirmation of Gothic architecture took place in A. without conflicts during the course of the thirteenth century.

For the fourteenth century one must recall the works in the basilica of S. Francesco and in the sacred convent, due to the great architect Matteo Gattaponi of Gubbio. In the sacred convent notable works of consolidation, enlargement and transformation were also carried out later, especially in the fifteenth century. Modest medieval buildings survive in some streets of the city, to which they confer an original and evocative appearance.

Of sculpture little remains in A.: in the Basilica there are some funerary monuments of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries; the two high altars of the lower church and of the upper church were executed by Roman marble-workers around the middle of the thirteenth century.

The painted cross, from which St. Francis at S. Damiano received the first impulse toward his vocation, is now preserved in the monastery of S. Chiara, and is a work of the end of the 12th century. From 1236 until well into the following century, numerous painters, almost all among the greatest who were active in various parts of Italy, gathered in A. to decorate the basilica of S. Francesco. The first is Giunta Pisano (nothing of his remains in the basilica of S. Francesco, but one of his painted Crosses is preserved in the museum of S. Maria degli Angeli): of a great follower of his, perhaps Umbrian, the "Master of S. Francesco," a series of mutilated frescoes in the nave of the lower church is of particular interest. Another notable follower of Giunta (whose work can be recognized at A., in the church of S. Chiara) is the "Master of S. Chiara." Later, perhaps between 1277 and 1281, comes Cimabue, who works in the lower church and in the upper church, accompanied or followed within a short span of years by numerous Roman masters (among whom it seems one must recognize Jacopo Torriti and Filippo Rusuti) who paint in the upper church.

From Rome, where he had come to know the works of Pietro Cavallini, Giotto also comes in the last years of the thirteenth century, and executes the cycle of the Stories of St. Francis on the lower zone of the walls of the nave of the upper church, truly succeeding in saying a new word. In some frescoes in the upper zone of those same walls it seems that an activity of Giotto prior to the Franciscan cycle is to be recognized. In the Basilica, and in other churches of A., numerous followers of Giotto worked, of whom Maso reveals himself the best; to one of these painters, and not to the master, must be attributed the frescoes in the vault webs above the altar of the lower church. From Siena come, accompanied by assistants, Simone Martini shortly after 1320 and Pietro Lorenzetti around 1339, and they leave frescoes of notable beauty in the lower church, where in 1368 Andrea da Bologna is at work, who completes the undertaking of the pictorial decoration of the sacred building.

Also worthy of particular attention in the Basilica are the stained-glass windows of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Together with many other valuable works of art, there are preserved in the Treasury of the adjoining sacred convent goldsmiths' works of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, tapestries, rare fabrics.

In the following centuries artistic production remains notable, in keeping with the high level maintained by religious life and civil life. To remain still in the basilica of S. Francesco, we may recall the choir of the lower church, completed in 1471 and bearing the signature of Apollonio da Ripatransone, while the very beautiful one of the upper church is signed by Domenico Antonio Indivini da San Severino, and bears the indication of the year 1501. Paintings by Matteo da Gualdo, by Pier Antonio Mezzastris and by Nicolò Alunno offer good testimony of pictorial activity in the fifteenth century, while at the end of that century and the beginning of the next we find at work two painters native to the place, Andrea da Assisi and Tiberio da Assisi, who, although the work of the former is not yet securely identified, reveal themselves to us as working after the examples of Perugino and Pinturicchio. There are also preserved in A. paintings by Giovanni Spagna, by Dono Doni (also born in this city) and by Cesare Sermei: with the activity of the latter we reach the seventeenth century.

In the basilica of S. Maria degli Angeli there are preserved a statue of St. Francis and an altarpiece attributed with good foundation to Andrea della Robbia, and there one may particularly appreciate, in the dome, the characteristics of the architecture of Galeazzo Alessi. Small but characteristic sixteenth-century monuments in A. are also the fonte Marcella and the fonte Oliviera. In the seventeenth century an architect native to A., Giacomo Giorgetti, left some good palaces, and also worked as a painter. Another seventeenth-century painter worthy of remembrance is Girolamo Martelli.

Interesting ancient remains are preserved in the Museum arranged within the crypt of S. Niccolò adjacent to the Forum; paintings and various objects from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance are found (in addition to the Treasury of the sacred convent of S. Francesco and the Museum of S. Maria degli Angeli already mentioned: in both of these collections there are sacred vestments of the highest interest), also in the Pinacoteca Comunale and in the Franciscan museum of the Capuchin fathers.

In ages closer to our own, the most keenly felt concern, as regards the monumental religious and civil building of A., is constantly that of keeping the appearance of the city uncontaminated, an appearance to which it may be said that even the humblest buildings contribute, almost all of them likewise built in that limestone of Subasio with its twofold tone of white and pink, which is made precious by the work of time. - See Pl. XVIII.

Achille Bertini Calosso