Assisi

The origins of Assisi, as for other cities in Umbria, are uncertain. It was inhabited, originally, from a population, the Umbrian, located in central Italy. Subsequently it was under Etruscan and Roman control, as well-documented by the many vestiges of the Roman municipium called Asisium.

Among these vestiges there are, well preserved, the facade of the Temple of Minerva, in the city main square, the remains of the Forum, the amphitheater, the Roman walls.

After the fall of the Roman Empire, Assisi became a Goths domain, around 545. Later it fell under the control of the Longobards. Around 1000 AC, Assisi became an independent municipality. During this period, it experienced an extraordinary development especially thanks to the monastic movements (Benedictines among the others).

Around 1180 St. Francis was born ehre, the most famous of its citizens. In 1202, during a war with the nearby Perugia, Francis was captured and held in prison for over a year. Since 1206, he devoted himself to serving God, in following Christ, through the service of the poor, living as poor himself. Its public renunciation, in the square of Assisi, to all goods of rich parents, is one of the biggest parts of his life. Francis is proclaimed a saint in 1228, only two years after his death, by Pope Gregory IX.

The city was first under the empire and then under the papacy. Then it was the turn of lordships like that of Gian Galeazzo Visconti, the family of Montefeltro, Braccio Fortebraccio and Francesco Sforza, until the sixteenth century, when it was conquered by Pope Paul III, who also built the famous Rocca Paolina in Perugia and regained papal control of the city. Later, in the nineteenth century, the City became part of the emerging Italian state.

The Monuments

TEMPLE OF MINERVA

The temple dates back to the late Republican, around first century BC. It was built by quatuorviri Gnaeus Cesio and Titus Cesio Prisco at their own expense, but probably was not dedicated to Minerva, as it was thought after the discovery of a statue of women, but to Hercules, of whom a votive plaque was found. The facade is surprisingly well preserved, still in its original state, with its six fluted columns with Corinthian capitals, which are based on the plinths. In 1539 it became the church of St. Maria sopra Minerva, further amended in Baroque style in the seventeenth century.

PALACE OF THE CAPITANO DEL POPOLO

Built between 1212 and 1305, it is the first public building in Piazza del Comune, next to the temple. In its facade you can see the measures of silk, flax and wool, but also the shapes of bricks and tiles for the construction industry. In the first panel of a cycle in the upper basilica of S. Francis church, Torre del Popolo is still missing its end, finished only in 1305. A restoration in 1927 somewhat changed the original aspect pf the palace.

CHURCH OF ST MARIA MORE

The church, originally founded in the tenth century, was the Cathedral of Assisi until 1036, when it was moved to S. Rufino. The building dates to the twelfth century. The simple facade, which bears an inscription of 1163, is divided into three compartments by pilasters. Inside, frescoes of the XIV and XV century can be seen. On the right, a sarcophagus of the late ninth century. From the Crypt (of the church above) a passage leads to the so-called House of Propertius, where wall paintings in Stile Pompeiano are preserved. From the adjacent garden, the remains of Roman walls, made in limestone blocks of Subasio, can be observed, superimposed by the medieval ones.

THE GREATER ROCCA

Documented for the first time in 1174, the fortress was built as a feudal German castle. Frederick of Swabia, the future Emperor Frederick II, spent a few years of his childhood (in fact, whe as baptized at Assisi in 1197, when he was three years old), entrusted to the care of Conrad of Urslingen. A year later, during an absence of Conrad, during the motions for independence, the fortress was destroyed by Assisi inhabitants. Only in 1367 the Cardinal Albornoz, rebuilt the walls, using parts of the interior walls. In 1458, the Jacopo Piccinino built the tower and the long wall of the connection; Pope Sixtus IV restored the keep in 1478 and Paul III built the circular tower near the entrance in 1535-38.

SANTA MARIA OF ANGELS

The Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli, with its imposing size (it is the seventh in order of magnitude between the Christian Churches) perhaps is not well suited to the Franciscans dictates of simplicity, but it was necessary in order to accommodate the masses of pilgrims visiting the Porziuncola, the primitive Chapel of St. Maria degli Angeli, received by S. Francis as a gift by the Benedictines and which became the core of the first convent, and the Chapel of Transit, the place where St. Francis died on October 4, 1226.