BASILICA OF SAN FRANCESCO
HISTORY
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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...
LOWER BASILICA
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You’re now in the Lower Basilica: the light from the outside adds a particular allure to mysterious world shrouding the body of the saint like a precious casket. With today’s electric...
LOWER BASILICA LORENZETTI
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Look carefully at the frescoes in the area to the left of the altar: they are more sophisticated - but also more dramatic – than the ones I’ve been telling you about until now. It was...
LOWER BASILICA SIMONE MARTINI
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In the Chapel of San Martino, you can see the work of another artist from Siena, the exquisitely talented Simone Martini, a competitor of Pietro Lorenzetti and the painter of the finest cycle of...
CLOISTER AND UPPER BASILICA
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Here we are in the large Cloister, where you can see the magnificent apse of the basilica in all its striking glory. The cloister can be considered the heart of the convent, linking the church to the...
UPPER BASILICA CIMABUE TRANSEPT
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We’ll start the visit with the famous frescoes in the transept, the transverse corridor at the back of the church where the altar is located, in the most sacred part of the building. It was here...
UPPER BASILICA GIOTTO 1
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In the transept, you’ve seen the way Cimabue painted, illustrating the life of Christ and the Apocalypse. He used dramatic, visionary images, which are often difficult to interpret, and his...
UPPER BASILICA GIOTTO 2
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In the fresco of the “Nativity scene at Greccio”, Giotto offers us a glimpse of how a medieval church was furnished, taking us beyond the barrier separating the part of the church open to...
UPPER BASILICA GIOTTO 3
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Let’s continue looking at the frescoes by Giotto on the last wall of the church. “Death of the Knight of Celano” illustrates the sudden death of a man who had invited Francis to...
