The museum in the former convent of Santa Maria degli Angeli holds some of the oldest portraits of Francis: the panel by Cimabue, that of the so-called Master of St Francis with the saint between two angels, the wooden crucifix by Giunta Pisano. They are works of the thirteenth century, painted while people who had known him in person were still about.
What to see
The route is chronological. It starts with a model of the area and the archaeological finds, then the thirteenth-century room with the major pieces and a painted stone Madonna nursing the child of the late fourteenth century; then the room of furnishings, with Robbia ceramics and a dossal by Andrea della Robbia of 1475, and then the Renaissance, with works by Sano di Pietro and l'Alunno.
The last room gathers what came after the building of the great basilica that today covers the Porziuncola. The museum was founded in the nineteen-twenties and rearranged in 1999; it also shows archive documents, models and graphic reconstructions that help you follow how the sanctuary grew around the chapel.
Visiting
The museum is inside the complex of Santa Maria degli Angeli, on the plain, four kilometres below Assisi and near the station; it has its own hours, different from the basilica's, and closures worth checking. An hour.
Our editors' tip
Climb the flight of stairs to the Conventino: it is what remains of the cells of the first friars, restored and now used for exhibitions. See how narrow and low they are, then go back down into the tall wide basilica that swallowed them. The comparison of those two measures tells the order's history better than any label.