Among the olive trees below Assisi is a small stone church with a convent attached. Here, in 1205, a young man of the city praying before a crucifix heard a voice telling him to repair his house: he took it literally and began putting the walls back up with his own hands. Twenty years later, ill and almost blind, he came back to this same place and composed here the Canticle of the Creatures. Between those two moments lies the whole story of Francis.
What to see
The convent is tiny and bare, and is seen in twenty minutes: the church, the wooden choir with its worn stalls, the dormitory where Clare of Assisi died after living here for forty years with her companions, the refectory with the places marked and the terrace over the vegetable garden. There is no gold, no marble, no works of art to list: there is a poor building that has stayed poor, and that is exactly the point.
The crucifix that spoke to Francis is no longer here: it is in the basilica of Santa Chiara, in the town, where the nuns took it when they moved. In its place is a copy, and the difference between the two is not as important as it seems, because what counts at San Damiano is the place, not the object.
Visiting
San Damiano is two kilometres below Assisi: you reach it in twenty minutes on foot, going down from Porta Nuova among the olive trees, or by car with parking not far off. Free entry with an offering, open daily with a midday closing. Three quarters of an hour.
Our editors' tip
Walk down and walk back up, even though it is an effort: the road among the olives is the one they used, and forty minutes of walking teach you more than the inside does. Then, in the convent, stop in the little garden: that is where the first great poetic text in the Italian language was written, by a man who could barely see.