An enormous church built around a tiny church: beneath the dome of the basilica, one of the largest in Christendom, a hundred and twenty-six metres long, stands the Porziuncola, the stone chapel the Benedictines gave to Francis and where the saint understood his vocation, welcomed Clare and his first companions and obtained from the pope the Pardon of Assisi. Pius V had it built from 1569 to a design by Galeazzo Alessi, with Vignola's hand, to shelter the Franciscan places and the pilgrims who crowded them; it was finished in 1679, largely collapsed in the earthquake of 1832, and the façade with the gilded bronze Madonna on top dates from 1930. Los Angeles bears its name.
What to see
The Porziuncola first of all: outside Overbeck's fresco of the Pardon, inside the Gothic darkness and the altarpiece by Ilario da Viterbo of 1393 with the stories of the indulgence, and on the inner façade Perugino's Crucifixion. A few dozen steps to the right, the Chapel of the Transito, the infirmary where Francis finished the Canticle of the Creatures and died on the evening of 3 October 1226, with the glazed terracotta statue by Andrea della Robbia, the saint's cord and Spagna's frescoes of the first companions, Leo, Rufino, Masseo, Giles, each with his name.
From the sacristy you come out into the Rose Garden, what remains of the friars' wood: the thornless roses, where according to tradition Francis rolled to overcome temptation and the brambles lost their thorns, and the doves in the hands of the statue. The Chapel of the Roses, frescoed by Tiberio d'Assisi, was his cell. In the basilica, the side chapels of the late sixteenth century and Federico Barocci's Annunciation in the transept; below, the crypt with the tabernacle by Andrea della Robbia and the foundations of the first friars' huts; in the friary, the museum with the Crucifix by Giunta Pisano and the panel by the Master of Saint Francis on which the saint's body was laid.
Visiting
The basilica is in the hamlet of Santa Maria degli Angeli, on the plain a few kilometres below Assisi and a kilometre from the railway station: those arriving by train meet it before the town. It is open all day, free, with Mass at many hours; the Porziuncola museum has its own times. On the first and second of August, for the Pardon, the crowds are those of the great shrines.
Our editors' tip
Come in the evening, when the coaches have left and the nave empties: the Porziuncola, lit inside the dark basilica, becomes again the little chapel in a wood that it was. And before leaving, stop at the Transito with the della Robbia statue: it is the only place in Assisi where Francis is not a fresco but a room, and you understand how small his life was.