Clare of Assisi, Saint

CLARE OF ASSISI, Saint. - Foundress with St. Francis of the Order of the Poor Clares, called the Second Franciscan Order, b. at Assisi in 1194 into a noble family (but not of the counts of Sasso Rosso nor of the Scifi), d. 11 Aug. 1253 at St. Damian outside the walls of the city. The example of complete renunciation and the preaching of St. Francis deeply impressed the noble young woman; who, having drawn near to the Saint, was instructed by him and confirmed in the new ideal of the perfect following of the poor life of Christ. On the night after Palm Sunday, 18 March 1212 (not 1211), C. with a relative secretly left her father's house and went to the Portiuncula in the plain below Assisi, where St. Francis with his companions received her, clothed her in the Franciscan habit and sheltered her with the Benedictines of St. Paul of the Bastia, and fifteen days later, in the monastery of St. Angelo in Panso at the foot of Subasio. Having been joined there by her younger sister St. Agnes (v.), St. Francis placed them near the rural church of St. Damian, a few steps from the walls of Assisi, whence the nuns of the Second Franciscan Order were at first called the "poor recluses of St. Damian," or also "of the Spoletan valley," and only after the death of the Saint, Poor Clares. As the number of nuns grew, C., in 1215, was made abbess and St. Francis sketched a rule (formula vitae) for them, of which some passages are preserved in the rule of St. C. of 1252-53. The origin of the first monasteries of the Damianites outside Assisi (Florence, Lucca, Siena, Perugia) was chiefly the work of Card. Ugolino, sent in 1217 as papal legate into Tuscia, who also composed a rule for the new monasteries (1218-19), perhaps not entirely accepted by C. She who had embraced the entire program of St. Francis, that is, absolute poverty even in common, obtained, from Gregory IX (Perugia 17 Sept. 1228), the privilege of poverty (Seraph. legislationis textus originales, Quaracchi 1897, p. 97), a document more unique than rare, by which the Pope declared that C. could not be compelled by anyone to accept possessions. The same privilege C. had perhaps already obtained from Innocent III. She governed her community, into which her own mother Ortolana and another sister named Beatrice had also entered, with the greatest charity and prudence. With a courageous act she drove from St. Damian the Saracen soldiery that Vitale d'Aversa, in the service of Frederick II, led to the siege of Assisi (1243). St. Francis did not forget the tender little plant, and in a hut built in the garden of St. Damian he composed the Canticle of the Sun. After the death of the holy founder, his body was made to pass by St. Damian, where C. and her disciples were able to contemplate one last time the dear features of the father. Always sickly, she often had to absent herself from the choir, and so it happened that one Christmas night, gently complaining to the Lord, she was at once transported in spirit to the basilica of St. Francis and assisted at the sacred functions. She remained most attached to the memory of the Saint who had won her to Christ, and when she saw that various monasteries were accepting possessions and revenues, C. became alarmed and wished to preserve the most exalted poverty for her monastery. She then composed (after 1247) her rule modeled on that of the Friars Minor of 1223, and had it approved by the cardinal protector Rainaldo (later Pope Alexander IV) in 1252, and three days before her death (9 Aug. 1253), by Innocent IV, who had come from Perugia to Assisi. Assisted by the faithful companions of St. Francis, Ginepro, Angelo, Leone, and refreshed by a heavenly vision, she gave up her last breath. She was buried provisionally in St. George until the church bearing her name was completed, in which her body, reduced to a skeleton, was found in 1850. Alexander IV canonized her at Anagni in 1255. Feast on 12 Aug.

Four letters of C. to Bl. Agnes of Prague are preserved, whose authenticity has been placed beyond doubt in the latest edition (Arch. franc. hist., 17 [1924], pp. 509-19). Doubtful are the testament (Seraph. legisl. textus orig., Quaracchi 1897, pp. 272-80) and the blessing (op. cit., p. 281 f.).

Livario Oliger

ICONOGRAPHY

The painters of the late 13th or 14th century often depicted the salient events of her earthly life, and Giotto himself portrayed her in the upper church of Assisi and in S. Croce in Florence, surrounded by her nuns as she venerates, near the church of S. Damiano, the body of St. Francis. A spiritual half-length image of her was painted by Simone Martini in the transept of the lower church of S. Francesco, also in Assisi.

Later, St. C. was almost always depicted in the act of holding up the Ostensorium, recalling the courageous gesture with which she had been able to stand her ground and drive from S. Damiano the soldiers of Vitale d'Aversa who were besieging Assisi. - See Pl. LXXXVII.

Emilio Lavagnino