Franciscan tradition says that the bells of this little church rang by themselves in the hour when Francis was dying, down at the Porziuncola, with nobody pulling the ropes. It is a story, not a document, but it explains why a church so small and so far off the route stays in the telling of Assisi beside the basilicas.
What to see
It was built between the twelfth and the thirteenth century in poor forms: a single nave, small windows, an open wooden ceiling, a bell-gable on the roof and a niche added in the sixteenth century. The walls were of bare stone as in half of Assisi, an aspect lost with the restoration of 2023.
On the side walls some frescoes survive: a Madonna with saints Francis and Stephen, by an unknown painter of the Giottesque circle, and a Crucifixion of which only the upper part remains, attributed to Dono Doni. They are fragments, not cycles, and they suit the measure of the place: there is nothing monumental here.
Visiting
The church is in via Santo Stefano, in a climbing lane five minutes from the basilica of San Francesco; entry is free, but the hours are short and it is not always found open. A quarter of an hour.
Our editors' tip
Sit inside for ten minutes doing nothing: it is one of the very few places in Assisi where you may be left alone, and the church is so small that you hear the steps in the lane and the bells of the other churches. In a town visited by millions, that is the real luxury.