Assisi
ASSISI INTRODUCTION
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This small, agreeable medieval town sits on the western flank of Mount Subasio, and its privileged position looking onto the Umbrian Valley allows visitors to admire breath-taking views of gentle...
THE WONDERS OF LOCAL CUISINE
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The most common starter is a sample of the delicious Umbrian salamis and cold cuts, such as Capocollo, from the back of the pig, prosciutto from Norcia, or Ventresca, a local type of pancetta, or...
SAINT FRANCIS
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He traveled in the East to talk with Muslim peoples, and walked the streets and squares preaching and attracting increasingly large crowds of disciples, whom he called “brethren”, or...
BASILICA OF SAN FRANCESCO
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What you’re looking at now is the facade, with a simple, double-pitched roof, a portal with a Gothic-style pointed arch, a large rose window half-way up and a smaller rose window above it, to...
HOUSE WHERE SAINT FRANCIS WAS BORN
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Opposite it, there is the seventeenth-century facade of the Chiesa Nuova, or “new church”. Bear with me, and listen to the translation of the phrase in Latin at the top of the portal,...
PIAZZA DEL COMUNE
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In medieval towns and cities in Italy, the most important buildings looked onto the square. Those you can see here indeed date back to the Middle Ages; they’re the same ones you saw, or will...
BASILICA OF SANTA CHIARA
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The Basilica has a very simple facade, divided into three parts by two horizontal cornices; in the center is a magnificent rose window embellished with a lace-like decoration. The only adornment is...
CATHEDRAL OF SAN RUFINO
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If you’re thinking the inside is much less austere than the facade, you’re right: it is bright, plastered and well-lit, because it was completely renovated in the 16th century in...
ABBEY OF SAN PIETRO
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If you’ve already visited other churches in Assisi, you’ll find this one familiar. The facade is divided into regular horizontal and vertical surfaces, embellished with elegant rose...
ROCCA
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Let me begin by telling you about the earliest information we have about this fortress, so you can draw your own conclusions. In the last years of the 12th century, Frederick Barbarossa, head of the...
SANTA MARIA DEGLI ANGELI IN PORZIUNCOLA
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You may be wondering what the enormous building in front of you has to do with a modest little church, and you will have guessed that it can’t be the one I’ve been talking about....
WOODLAND OF SAINT FRANCIS
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Just imagine, until 2008, this was an abandoned place, turned into an illegal dump. When the Trust received it as a gift, it had to clear it of over 30 tonnes of rubbish, restore the historical...
SANCTUARY OF SAN DAMIANO
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It was 1205 when the young Francis, who had recently given up his plans to leave for the Fourth Crusade as a knight, found himself passing the church of San Damiano.
Erected a few centuries earlier,...
