In 1206, before the bishop and half the city, a young man of Assisi took off his clothes and gave them back to his father, who had denounced him for selling his cloth. Francis's story begins with that gesture, and the place where it happened is this one: the square in front of Santa Maria Maggiore, which was the cathedral of Assisi before San Rufino and is now also called the sanctuary of the Stripping. The church is Romanesque, extremely plain, with a stone front and a rose window, and it stands below the level of the main street.
What to see
Inside there is almost nothing, and for centuries it was one of the least visited churches in town. Then things changed: here is buried Carlo Acutis, a boy from Milan who died of leukaemia at fifteen in 2006, who had put a catalogue of eucharistic miracles online and who was proclaimed a saint in 2025. His tomb is visible, the body dressed in his everyday clothes, and for years now it has brought queues of very young pilgrims to Assisi.
Beneath the church you go down to the Roman house it was built over, with mosaic floors and remains of frescoes: local tradition calls it the house of the poet Propertius, who came from Assisi, though nobody can prove it. It is one of the few points in the city where you see the Roman level under the medieval one.
Visiting
The church is in piazza del Vescovado, five minutes from piazza del Comune going down the hill; free entry, with queues at weekends and in pilgrimage seasons. The underground house has its own ticket and hours. Half an hour, longer if there is a queue.
Our editors' tip
Come early in the morning or on a weekday in winter, when there is nobody: then you can stand in the middle of the square and think that it happened here, in this small space, in front of these same stones. Then go down to the Roman house: almost nobody does, and it gives the measure of how old the street you are walking on really is.