Assisi - Basilica of San Francesco

2018

The basilica of San Francesco is located in Assisi, it is the place that since 1230 preserves and guards the mortal remains of the seraphic saint. Wanted by Pope Gregory IX as specialis ecclesia, it was awarded by the same Pontiff the title of Caput et Mater of the Minorite Order and at the same time entrusted in perpetuity to the same friars. In the complex history that marked the evolution of the Order, the basilica (and the adjoining Sacred Convent) was always guarded by the so-called "community friars", the group that later went on to form the Order of Friars Minor Conventual. At the sepulchral church of the Basilica where the altar on the tomb of the saint was erected, on November 19, 1585, the Franciscan Pope Sixtus V, with the bull Supernae dispositionis, established the Archconfraternity of the Cordigeri. In 1754 Benedict XIV elevated it to the dignity of patriarchal Basilica (since 2006 "Papal Basilica") and Papal Chapel. In the year 2000, together with other Franciscan sites in the district, the basilica was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.

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Assisi is a hill town in Umbria, in central Italy. It is the birthplace of San Francesco (1181-1226), one of the patron saints of Italy. The basilica of San Francesco is an imposing church on 2 levels consecrated in 1253. The 13th century frescoes depicting the life of San Francesco have been attributed, among others, to Giotto and Cimabue. The crypt houses the stone sarcophagus of the saint.

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Assisi - Church of San Damiano

The church of San Damiano is an important Catholic place of worship in Assisi, located on the southern outskirts of the city. The first biographer of Saint Francis, Tommaso da Celano, in the Life before him, narrates that in 1205 Saint Francis of Assisi after wandering in the countryside, enters the church of San Damiano, in the countryside of Assisi. Praying in front of the crucifix present inside the church, and after having insistently asked for light for his path, faith and hope, he hears him speak and ask him three times to "repair his house which is in ruins". This event will have a profound impact on the life of the saint who, right here, in the last years of his life, composed the Canticle of creatures. The crucifix has a very particular aspect: Christ on the cross does not show suffering, but seems almost to stand up to communicate a message of hope with open arms. Between 1211 and 1212 St. Clare, following a prophecy of St. Francis, founded an order of cloisters who resided there until 1260. The same church, according to Catholic historiography, was the protagonist of the main miracles of the saint: the multiplication of bread, the gift of oil, the escape of the Saracens from the cloister, some exorcisms and healings, the appearance of the cross on bread in front of the pope.

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The Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli is a Roman Catholic rite church located in Assisi, in the hamlet of the same name. It was built on a project by Galeazzo Alessi and with interventions by Jacopo Barozzi da Vignola starting from the second half of the sixteenth century. On top of the facade of the temple stands the statue of the Madonna in gilded bronze modeled by Colasanti and cast by the Ferdinando Marinelli Artistic Foundry of Florence. It has the dignity of a papal basilica. Inside there is the Porziuncola, the chapel where Francis of Assisi gathered in prayer, and for this reason the center of Franciscan spirituality.

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