Be not an occasion of wrath to any one," he often said, "but by your gentleness may all be led to press onward to good works."
The supreme aim of Francis was that of service to humanity. He gave himself with impa.s.sioned fervor to this one work. For him there were no ideals of cloistered seclusion or of devotion to learning and art, but the ideal alone to uplift humanity. It was literally and simply, indeed, the Christ ideal. Of the "Rule" made, one of his biographers says:--
"Amid all these encouragements the Rule was made. It consists, like other monastic rules, of the three great vows of poverty, chast.i.ty, and obedience, differing only in so far that the poverty ordained by Francis was absolute. In other rules, though the individual was allowed to possess nothing, the community had often rich possessions, and there was no reason why the monks should not fare sumptuously and secure to themselves many earthly enjoyments, notwithstanding their individual dest.i.tution and their vow. But among the Brothers Minor there was not to be so much as a provision secured for the merest daily necessities. Day by day they were to live by G.o.d"s providence, eating what was given to them, taking no thought how they were to be fed, or wherewithal clothed; "neither gold nor silver in your purses;" not even the scrip to collect fragments in--as if G.o.d could not provide for every returning necessity. There had been monasteries in Italy for centuries, and the Benedictines were already a great and flourishing community; but this absolute renunciation of all things struck a certain chill to the hearts of all who heard of it, except the devoted band who had no will but that of Francis. His friend, the Bishop of a.s.sisi, was one of those who stumbled at this novel and wonderful self-devotion. "Your life, without a possession in the world, seems to me most hard and terrible," said the compa.s.sionate prelate. "My lord," said Francis, "if we had possessions, arms and protection would be necessary to us." There was a force in this response which perhaps we can scarcely realize, but the a.s.sisan bishop, who knew something of the temper of the lords of Umbria, and knew how lonely were the brethren dwelling on the church lands--the little plot (Portiuncula) a whole half league from the city gates--understood and perceived the justice of the reply.
"Another grand distinction of the Rule drawn up by Francis was the occupation it prescribed to its members. They were not to shut themselves up, or to care first for their own salvation. They were to preach--this was their special work; they were to proclaim repentance and the remission of sins; they were to be heralds of G.o.d to the world, and proclaim the coming of His kingdom. It is not possible to suppose that when he thus began to organize the mind of Francis did not make a survey of the establishments already in existence--the convents bound by the same three great vows, where life at this moment was going on so placidly, with flocks and herds and vineyards to supply the communities, and studious monks in their retirement, safe from all secular anxieties, fostering all the arts in their beginning, and carrying on the traditions of learning; while all around them the great unquiet, violent world heaved and struggled, yet within the convent walls there was leisure and peace. Blessed peace and leisure it was often, let us allow, preserving for us the germs of many good things we now enjoy, and raising little centres of safety and charity and brotherly kindness through the country in which they were placed.
But such quiet was not in the nature of Francis. So far as we can make out, he had thought little of himself--even of his own soul to be saved--all his life. The trouble on his mind had been what to do, how sufficiently to work for G.o.d and to help men. His fellow creatures were dear to him; he gave them his cloak from his shoulders many a day, and the morsel from his own lips, and would have given them the heart from his bosom had that been possible."
These are the "voices" that still echo in the air of a.s.sisi. In the suburbs is still shown the spot where the chapel of St. Damian stood up a rocky path on the hillside in an olive grove. It was here that the scene of the miracle of the crucifix is laid. Before the altar Francis knelt, praying: "Great and Glorious Father, and thou, Lord Jesus, I pray ye, shed abroad your light in the darkness of my mind. May I in all things act in accordance with thy holy will."
It is recorded that while he thus knelt in deep prayer, he was unable to turn his eyes from the cross, conscious that something marvellous was taking place. The image of the Saviour a.s.sumed life; the eyes turned attentively on him; a voice spoke accepting his service and he felt at once endowed with the most marvellous tide of vitality, of joy, and of exhilaration. At this moment he entered on that life whose impress is left on the ages. Of the character and the peculiar quality of its influence Mrs. Oliphant well says:--
"It is not always possible to follow with our sympathy that literal, childlike rendering of every incident in the life of the Master, which sometimes looks fantastical and often unmeaning. He was a man of his time, and could live only under the conditions which that time allowed. He made visible to a literal, practical, unquestioning age the undeniable and astounding fact that the highest of all beings chose a life of poverty, hardship, and humbleness; that He chose submission instead of resistance, love instead of oppression, peace and forgiveness instead of revenge and war. Christ had died in their hearts, as said the legend of that Christmas at Greccia; and, as in one of the bold and artless pictures just then beginning to yield to a more refined and subtle art, Francis set forth before the world the image of his Master.
The Son of man was lifted up, as on another cross, before the eyes of Umbria, before all Italy, warlike and wily, priest and baron, peasant and Pope. In this world Francis knew nothing, acknowledged nothing, cared for nothing save Christ and Him crucified--except, indeed, Christ"s world, the universe redeemed, the souls to be saved, the poor to be comforted, the friends to be cherished, the singing birds and bubbling fountains, the fair earth and the sweet sky. Courteous, tender, and gentle as any paladin, sweet-tongued and harmonious as any poet, liberal as any prince, was the barefooted beggar and herald of G.o.d. We ask no visionary reverence for the Stigmata, no wondering belief in any miracle. As he stood, he was as great a miracle as any then existing under G.o.d"s abundant, miraculous heavens; more wonderful than are the day and night, the sun and the dew; only less wonderful than that great Love which saves the world, and which it was his aim and destiny to reflect and show forth."
That mystic union to which all the ages attest, the union that may, at any moment, be formed between the soul and G.o.d, that mystery which the church calls conversion and which finds its perfect interpretation in the words of St. Paul, when he said, that if any man be in Christ he is a new creation, had been accomplished in the life of Francis. He realized the fulness of the knowledge of G.o.d"s will; he longed only for wisdom and for spiritual understanding. Nor is this experience one to be relegated to the realm of miracle. It is simply entering into the supreme completeness of life. It is not alone St. Paul, but every man, who may truly say, "I can do all things through Christ, who strengtheneth me." Nor does this experience, when translated aright into daily life and action, require any abnormal form of expression. It does not, in its truest significance, mean a life apart from the ordinary duties, but rather it means that these duties shall be fulfilled in the larger and n.o.bler way. The exceptional man may be called to be the standard bearer; to renounce all domestic ties and give his service to the world; but such a life as this differs only in degree from that which in the ordinary home and social relations finds ample means for its best expression. The persistent aim after perfection should be the keynote of every life. No one should be satisfied to hold as his supreme ideal any lesser standard of ultimate achievement than is involved in the divine command, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect." This is the soul"s ideal, whatever ages and eternities it may require for it to recognize this trackless path.
St. Francis recognized joy as a factor of the n.o.bler life. "It was his constant effort," writes one biographer, "that there should be bright looks and cheerful tones about him. To one of his brethren, who had the habit of walking about sadly with his head drooping, he said,--it is evident, with a spark of the impatience natural to his own vivacious spirit,--"You may surely repent of your sins, my brother, without showing your grief so openly. Let your sorrow be between G.o.d and you: pray to Him to pardon you by His mercy, and to restore to your soul the joy of His salvation. But before me and the others be always cheerful, for it does not become a servant of G.o.d to have an air of melancholy and a face full of trouble.""
An incident in the early life of St. Francis, which had determining significance, was his meeting with Dominic. The story is told "that Dominic, praying in a church in Rome, saw, in a vision, our Lord rise from the right hand of the Father in wrath, wearied at last with the contradiction of sinners, with a terrible aspect and three lances in his hand, each one of which was to destroy from the face of the earth a distinct cla.s.s of offenders. But while the dreamer gazed at this awful spectacle, the Virgin Mother arose and pleaded for the world, declaring that she had two faithful servants whom she was about to send into it to bring sinners to the feet of the Saviour; one of these was Dominic himself, the other was a poor man, meanly clad, whom he had never seen before. This vision came to the devout Spaniard, according to the legend, during the night, which he spent, as he was wont, in a church, in prayer. Next morning, while he mused on the dream which had been sent to him, his eye fell all at once upon a stranger in a brown tunic, of aspect as humble and modest as his garb, coming into the same church to pray. Dominic at once ran to him, fell on his neck, and, saluting him with a kiss, cried, "Thou art my companion: thy work and mine is the same. If we stand by each other, nothing can prevail against us.""
No magic mirror, however, revealed to Francis the wonderful panorama of his future. No sibyl turned the leaves of the records yet to unfold. "He was preparing himself for a life of penitence rather than a life of activity," in the opinion of Paul Sabatier, and he had dreamed no dream of becoming a religious founder. He was so entirely without any personal ambition, save that of being obedient to the Heavenly Vision, that this absolute consecration of purpose enabled the divine power to work through him without obstruction. He became a very perfect instrument, so to speak, in the divine hand. After repairing the little chapel called the Portiuncula, on the level ground at the foot of the hill, some two miles from a.s.sisi, his plan was to there pa.s.s his time in meditation and prayer. But the legend runs that on the feast of St. Mathias (February 24), in the winter of 1209, a Benedictine monk was celebrating ma.s.s and on his turning to read, "Wherever ye go preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand," Francis was profoundly and peculiarly impressed, and he exclaimed: "This is what I desire, O Father; from this day forth I set myself to put this command in practice." He felt that Jesus himself had spoken to him through the priest. Love and sacrifice became to him the supreme ideals, and in this moment, in that poor and bare little chapel, was inaugurated one of the greatest and most far-reaching religious movements of the entire world.
"Not always as the whirlwind"s rush On h.o.r.eb"s mount of fear, Not always as the burning bush To Midian"s shepherd seer, Not as the awful voice which came To Israel"s prophet bards, Nor as the tongues of cloven flame, Nor gift of fearful words,--
"Not always thus with outward sign Of fire or voice from Heaven The message of a truth divine, The call of G.o.d is given!"
That great ministry of St. Francis, whose influence pervades all time,--that lies between the opening years of the thirteenth and the opening years of the twentieth centuries,--was initiated the next morning in a.s.sisi, when Francis preached for the first time. He spoke simply, emphasizing the truths he had learned to realize through his own experience: the absolute duty of following after perfection; the importance of realizing the shortness of life and the need of repentance. The first disciple of Francis was a wealthy resident of a.s.sisi, named Bernardo. He was impressed with the conviction that he should distribute his possessions and unite with Francis in all his aims and work. Without definite organization, others joined them. They pa.s.sed that spring and summer going up and down the country, sometimes a.s.sisting the harvesters and haymakers, and everywhere entering into the common life of the people. The Bishop of a.s.sisi, however, remonstrated with Francis, saying that to him it seemed very harsh and unwise to try to live without owning anything. To which Francis replied that he did not desire temporal possessions, as these required arms for their defence and were an obstacle to the love of G.o.d and one"s neighbor. It has remained for later years to discern the still truer significance of the teachings of Jesus, that neither possessions nor the lack of possessions form the real test, but the use which is made of them. As spiritual insight is developed it is more and more clearly realized that the quality of the life lived is the sole matter of importance, and not the conditions that surround it.
The brotherhood increased. The abbot of the Benedictines on Monte Subasio ceded to Francis and his order the little chapel called the Portiuncula, now enclosed within the vast and magnificent church of Santa Maria degli Angeli. M. Paul Sabatier, in his admirable biography of St. Francis, points out clearly that the founder of the Franciscans contemplated a laboring and not a mendicant order. During the decade 1211 to 1221, which Francis and his followers pa.s.sed at the Portiuncula, a portion of the time was constantly pa.s.sed in industrial pursuits.
"With all his gentleness, Francis knew how to show an inflexible severity toward the idle," says Sabatier, "and he even went so far as to dismiss a friar who refused to work." Although Francis espoused poverty, declaring that she was his bride, he was unfalteringly loyal to the ideals of honest industry and integrity.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ST. FRANCIS D"a.s.sISI, THE DUOMO, a.s.sISI Giovanni Dupre _Page 366_]
The mystic legends of the life of their saint that abound in a.s.sisi are touched with poetic romance in that a companion figure is always seen by his side, that of Santa Chiara. Not more inseparable in popular thought are Dante and Beatrice, or Petrarca and Laura, than are Francis and Clara. Their statues stand side by side in the Duomo; they are represented together by both painter and sculptor in the churches of Santa Chiara and Santa Maria degli Angeli in the old hill town. Chiara was the daughter of a n.o.ble family, and as a girl of sixteen, coming under the influence of Francis from hearing one of his sermons, she, too, became one of his followers and left her father"s palace in a.s.sisi to take the vows of perpetual and voluntary poverty at the altar of the Portiuncula. Followed by two women, she pa.s.sed swiftly through the town in the dead of the night, and through dark woods, her hurrying figure seeming like some spirit driven by winds towards an unknown future. One thing alone was clear before her--that she was nearing the abode of Francis Bernardone whose preaching at San Giorgio only a month before had thrilled her, inspiring her in this strange way to seek the life he had described in fiery words. Just as she came in sight of the Portiuncula the chanting of the brethren, which had reached her in the wood, suddenly ceased, and they came out with lighted torches in expectation of her coming. Swiftly and without a word she pa.s.sed in to attend the midnight ma.s.s which Francis was to serve, and the scene is thus described:--
"The ceremony was simple, wherein lies the charm of all things Franciscan. The service over and the last blessing given, St.
Francis led Clare toward the altar, and with his own hands cut off her long, fair hair and unclasped the jewels from her neck. But a few minutes more and a daughter of the proud house of Scifi stood clothed in the brown habit of the order, the black veil of religion falling about her shoulders, lovelier far in this nun-like severity than she had been when decked out in all her former luxury of silken gowns and precious gems.
"It was arranged that Clare was to go afterward to the Benedictine nuns of San Paolo, near Bastia, about an hour"s walk farther on in the plain. So when the final vows had been taken, St. Francis took her by the hand and they pa.s.sed out of the chapel together just as dawn was breaking, while the brethren returned to their cells gazing half sadly, as they pa.s.sed, at the coils of golden hair and the little heap of jewels which still lay upon the altar cloth."
Clara founded a convent and lived as its abbess, and the great church of Santa Chiara is built on the site of this convent. She was born in a.s.sisi in 1194, and died in 1253, surviving Francis by twenty-seven years. Her father was the Count Favorini Scifi, and he had destined his daughter--who had great beauty--to a rich and brilliant marriage. He violently opposed her choice of the religious life, but no earthly power, she declared, should sever her from it.
The beauty of the lifelong friendship between Francis and Clara is thus touched upon by Mrs. Oliphant:--
"It was one of those tender and touching friendships which are to the student of history like green spots in the desert; and which gave to the man and the woman thus voluntarily separated from all the joys of life a certain human consolation in the midst of their hardships. They can have seen each other but seldom, for it was one of the express stipulations of the Franciscan Rule that the friars should refrain from all society with women, and have only the most sparing and reserved intercourse even with their sisters in religion. And Francis was no priest, nor had he the privilege of hearing confession and directing the spiritual life of his daughter in the faith. But he sent to her to ask enlightenment from her prayers, when any difficulty was in his way. He went to see her when he was in trouble; especially once on his way to Rieti to have an operation performed on his eyes. Once the two friends ate together at a sacramental meal, the pledge and almost the conclusion on earth of that tenderest, most disinterested, and unworldly love which existed between them. That he was sure of her sympathy in all things, of her prayers and spiritual aid, whatsoever he might be doing, wheresoever he might be, no doubt was sweet to Francis in all his labors and trials. As he walked many a weary day past that church of St. Damian, every stone of which was familiar to him, and many laid with his own hands, must not his heart have warmed at thought of the sister within, safe from all conflict with the world, upon whose fellow-feeling he could rely absolutely as man can rely only on woman? The world has jeered at the possibility of such friendships from its earliest age; and yet they have always existed,--one of the most exquisite and delicate of earthly ties. Gazing back into that far distance over the graves, not only of those two friends, but of a hundred succeeding generations, a tear of grateful sympathy comes into the student"s eye. He is glad to believe that, all those years, Francis could see in his comings and goings the cloister of Clara; and that this sacred gleam of human fellowship,--love purified of all self-seeking,--tender, visionary, celestial affection, sweetened their solitary lives."
Legends innumerable, attesting supernormal manifestations regarding Francis, sprang up and have been perpetuated through the ages. One is as follows:--
"Hardly more than three years from the moment when the pale penitent was hooted through a.s.sisi amid the derisive shouts of the people, and driven with blows and curses into confinement in his own father"s house, we find that it has already become his custom on Sunday to preach in the cathedral; and that, from his little convent at the Portiuncula, Francis has risen into influence in the whole country, which no doubt by this time was full of stories of his visit to Rome and intercourse with the Pope, and all the miraculous dreams and parables with which that intercourse was attended. Already the mind of the people, so slow to adopt, but so ready to become habituated to, anything novel, had used itself to the sight of the brethren in their brown gowns, and, leaping from one extreme to the other, instead of madmen, learned to consider them saints. The air about the little cloister began to breathe of miracles,--miracles which must have been a matter of common report among the contemporaries of the saint, for Celano wrote within three years of Francis"s death. Once, when their leader was absent, a sudden wonder startled the brethren. It was midnight between Sat.u.r.day and Sunday, and Francis, who had gone to preach at a.s.sisi, was at the moment praying in the canon"s garden. A chariot of fire, all radiant and shining, suddenly entered the house, awaking those who lay asleep, and moving to wonder and awe those who watched, or labored, or prayed. It was the heart and thoughts of their leader returning to them in the midst of his prayer, which were figured by this appearance."
When Francis died a pathetic scene is thus described:--
"All the clergy of a.s.sisi, chanting solemn hymns, came out to meet the bier, and thus they climbed the hill to the birthplace of the saint, the city of his toils and tears and blessing. When they came to St. Damian an affecting pause was made. Clara within, with all her maidens, waited the last visit of their father and friend.
Slowly the triumphant crowd defiled into the church of the nuns, hushing, let us hope, their songs of joy, their transports of gratulations, out of respect to the grief which dwelt there, and could scarcely, by all the arguments of family pride, or the excitement of this universal triumph, be brought to rejoice. The bier was set down within the chancel, the coffin opened, and opened also was the little window through which the nuns received the sacrament on ordinary occasions. To this little opening the pale group of nuns, ten of them, with Clara at their head, came marching silently, with tears and suppressed cries. Clara herself, even in face of that mult.i.tude, could not restrain her grief. "Father, father, what will become of us?" she cried out; "who will care for us now, or console us in our troubles?" "Virgin modesty," says Celano, stopped her lamentations, and with a miserable attempt at thanksgiving, reminding herself that the angels were rejoicing at his coming, and all was gladness on his arrival in the city of G.o.d, the woman who had been his closest friend in this world, whose sympathy he had sought so often, kissed the pale hands--"splendid hands," says Celano, in his enthusiasm, "adorned with precious gems and shining pearls"--and disappeared from the little window with her tears into the dim convent behind, where n.o.body could reprove her sorrow."
The personality of Chiara comes down to us through the ages invested with untold charm. It is said that when she was dying there came "a long procession of white-robed virgins, led by the Queen of Heaven, whose head was crowned with a diadem of shining gold, each of the celestial visitors stooped to kiss Chiara as her soul pa.s.sed to its home."
During all the life of Francis, whenever any new movement or work was to be undertaken, he invariably sent to ask the counsel and the prayers of Chiara.
The miraculous preservation of the body of Santa Chiara is one of the articles of faith in a.s.sisi. In 1850--six hundred years after her death--a tomb believed to be hers was found and opened in the presence of a distinguished group of ecclesiastics, among whom was Cardinal Pecci, later Pope Leo XIII. In this tomb a form is said to have been found, and it has been placed in a reliquary of alabaster and Carrara marble especially constructed for it. This sanctuary is placed in the church of Santa Chiara, in the crypt, behind a gla.s.s screen, where candles are kept perpetually burning. Lina Gordon Duff, writing the history of a.s.sisi, says of this curious spectacle:--
"As pilgrims stand before a grating in the dimly lighted crypt, the gentle rustle of a nun"s dress is heard; slowly invisible hands draw the curtain aside, and the body of Santa Chiara is seen lying in a gla.s.s case upon a satin bed, her face clearly outlined against her black and white veils, whilst her brown habit is drawn in straight folds about her body. She clasps the book of her Rule in one hand, and in the other holds a lily with small diamonds shining on the streamers."
[Ill.u.s.tration: SANTA CHIARA, THE DUOMO, a.s.sISI Amalia Dupre _Page 375_]
In all these churches--the great convent church, upper and lower, of the Franciscans elaborately adorned with frescoes by Cimabue and by Giotto; in the ancient Duomo; in Santa Chiara and in Santa Maria degli Angeli--statues of the two saints, Francis and Chiara, are placed side by side. She shares all the exaltation of his memory and the fulness of his fame.
The strange problem of the stigmata has, perhaps, never been absolutely solved. Canon Knox Little says that as to the miracles of St. Francis generally speaking, there is no intrinsic improbability; that "his holy life, his constant communion with G.o.d, the abundant blessings with which it pleased G.o.d to mark his ministry, all point in the same direction."
Latter-day revelations of psychic science disclose contemporary facts of the power of mental influence on the physical form that are, in many instances, hardly less wonderful than this alleged miracle of St.
Francis. Whether the story is accepted literally or only in a figurative sense does not affect the transcendent power of his influence. His entire life and work ill.u.s.trate the beauty of holiness. "Art in its widest sense gained a marvellous impulse from his work and effort," says Canon Knox Little. The French and Provencal literature and the schools of Byzantine art preceded the life of Francis; but his influence imparted a powerful wave of sympathetic and vital insight and awakened a world of new sensibilities of feeling. Indeed, it is a proverb of Italy, "Without Francis, no Dante." Certainly the life of Francis was the inspiration of the early Italian art. Cimabue and Giotto drew from the inspiration of that unique and lovely life the pictorial conceptions that have made a.s.sisi the cradle of Italian painting. The great works of Giotto are in the lower church of the Franciscan monastery. One of these frescoes represents chast.i.ty as a maiden kneeling in a shrine, while angels bring to her branches of palm. Obedience is depicted as placing a yoke upon the bowed figure of a priest, while St. Francis, attended by two angels, looks on; Poverty, whom Francis declared to be his bride, is pictured as accompanied by Hope and Charity, who give her in marriage to St. Francis, the union being blessed by Christ, while the heavenly Father and throngs of angels gaze through the clouds on this nuptial scene. The fresco called Gloriosus Franciscus is perhaps the crowning work of Giotto. Francis is seen in a beat.i.tude of glory, with a richly decorated banner bearing the cross and seven stars floating above his head and bands of angels in the air surrounding him. Canon Knox Little, alluding to these interesting works of Giotto, says that "even in their faded glories they give an immense interest to the lower church of a.s.sisi. No one can look at them now unmoved, or wander on the hillside to the west of the little city, with the rugged rocks above one"s head, and beneath one"s feet the rich carpets of cyclamen, and before one"s eyes long dreamy stretches of the landscape of Umbria, without being touched by the feeling of that beautiful and loving life devoted to G.o.d and man and nature, in utter truth, which therefore left such an impress on Christian art."
The Madonna and saints painted by Cimabue are faded almost to the point of obliteration, yet there still lingers about them a certain grace and charm. The visitor to this Franciscan monastery church realizes that he is beholding the art which was the very pledge and prophecy of the Renaissance, and he realizes, too, that the Renaissance itself was the outgrowth of the new vitality communicated to the world by the life and character of St. Francis. He gave to the world the realization of the living Christ; he taught that religion was in action, not in theology.
He liberated the spirit; and when this colossal church was being built (1228-53) the artists who had felt the new thrill of life opened by his teaching hastened to a.s.sisi to express their appreciation by their pictorial work on its walls. The qualities of spiritual life--faith, sacrifice, sympathy, and love--began, for the first time, to be interpreted into artistic expression.
The tomb of St. Francis is in the crypt of the church. The stone sarcophagus containing his body was discovered in 1818, and then placed here in a little chamber especially prepared, surrounded by an iron latticework with candles perpetually burning.
From the sacristy of the lower church, stairs ascend to the upper, with its beautiful nave and transept with a high altar, and the choir stalls.
While the lower church with its great arches is always dark, the upper is flooded with light from vast windows. There is a series of frescoed panels on either side, accredited to pupils of Giotto, full of forcible action and a glow of color. But the upper church, while it is magnificent, lacks somewhat of that mystic atmosphere one is so swiftly conscious of in the gloom and mystery of the lower church.
Stretching behind the churches, along the crest of the high hill, is the colossal monastery itself, with that double row of arches and colonnades that makes it so conspicuous a feature of all the Umbrian valley.
Formerly hundreds of monks dwelt here; but the Italian government suppressed this monastery in 1866, and since that time it has been used as a school for boys.
The ancient Duomo, whose facade is of the twelfth century, has three exquisite rose windows, and on either side, as one approaches the high altar, stand the statues of St. Francis and of Santa Chiara. In the little piazza in front of the church is a bronze copy of Dupre"s famous statue of St. Francis.
The colossal church of Santa Maria degli Angeli, with its magnificent dome, is a contrast, indeed, to the primitive little Portiuncula where Francis knelt in prayer, and which is now preserved in the centre of this vast cathedral,--the rude structure encased in marble, and decorated, above the entrance, with a picture by Overbeck, whose motive is St. Francis as he stands, hushed and reverent, listening to the voice that tells him to embrace poverty. There is a fine Perugino in the church, representing the Saviour. The cell in which St. Francis died, enclosed in the little chapel which St. Bonaventura built over it, is preserved in this great cathedral.
"And who was he that opened that door in heaven?" questions Canon Knox Little in reference to St. Francis. "Who was he that gave that fresh life and thought? Who but the man who had brought down in his own person the living Christ into his century, who had taught men again the love of G.o.d, and then the love of man and the love of nature; who had lifted the people out of their misery and degradation, and awakened the church out of its stiffness and worldliness; it was he, too, who inspired, who may at most be said to have created, Italian art,--the great St.
Francis! Such are the deep, such are the penetrating, such are the far-reaching effects of sanct.i.ty. If a soul is, by divine grace, given wholly to G.o.d, it is impossible for us to say to what heights it may attain, or what good, in every region of human effort, it may do."
[Ill.u.s.tration: BAIae AND ISCHIA, FROM CAMALDOLI _Page 382_]
Perugia, the neighboring city only fifteen miles from a.s.sisi, is the metropolis of all this Umbrian region. Like a.s.sisi, it is a "hill town,"
built on an acropolis of rock, its foundations laid by the Etruscans more than three thousand years before the Christian era, and its atmosphere is freighted with the records of artists and scholars. The Perugians were the forerunners. They held the secret of artifice in metals and gems; they were architects and sculptors. The only traces of their painting that have come down to us are their works on sarcophagi, on vases or funeral urns,--traces that indicate their gifts for line and form. It was about 310 B.C. that all Umbria became a Roman province.
The colossal porta of Augustus--a gateway apparently designed for the Cyclops--still retains its inscription, "Augustus Perusia." The imperishable impress of the great Roman conqueror is still seen in many places. Perugia was a firm citadel, as is attested by the fact that Totila and his army of Goths spent seven years in besieging it. The centuries from the thirteenth to the fifteenth inclusive, when it was under the sway of the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, were years of tragic violence. Even the cathedral became the scene of riot, and its interior was entirely washed with wine, and it was reconsecrated before it could be again used for holy offices. The little piazza in front of the cathedral, now dreaming in the sun, has been the scene of strange and contrasting crises of life. Strife and warfare have desolated it; the footsteps of Bernardino of Siena have consecrated it, as he pa.s.sed within the great portals to preach the gospel of peace. He was one of the most potent of the Francescan disciples, and Bernardino (born of the n.o.ble family of the Albizzeschi, in 1380, in Siena, the year after St.
Catherine"s death) for forty years wandered over Italy, preaching peace and repentance. Vespasiano da Bisticci, a contemporary historian, records that Bernardino "converted and changed the minds and spirits of men marvellously and had a wondrous power in persuading men to lay aside their mortal hatreds." Bernardino died at the age of sixty-four in Aquila, and the towns in which he had faithfully carried on his apostolic work placed the sacred sign of the divine name (I.H.S.) upon their gates and palaces, in his memory. In the Sienese gallery is a portrait of San Bernardino by Sano, painted in 1460, representing the saint as the champion of the Holy Name, with the inscription, "I have manifested Thy name to men." In one of his impressive and wonderful sermons San Bernardino said:--
"There still remain many places for us to make. Ah! for the love of G.o.d, love one another. Alas! see you not that, if you love the destruction one of the other you are ruining your very selves? Ah!
put this thing right for the love of G.o.d. Love one another! What I have done to make peace among you and to make you like brothers, I have done with that zeal I should wish my own soul to receive. I have done it all to the glory of G.o.d. And let no one think that I have set myself to do anything at any person"s request. I am only moved by the bidding of G.o.d for His honor and glory."