Santa Maria degli Angeli and the Porziuncola
The little church inside the basilica
In the plain below Assisi, the huge Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli, with its tall dome and its façade crowned by a golden statue of the Virgin, hides in its centre a tiny, ancient treasure: the Porziuncola, a small stone chapel of the tenth to eleventh century, which is one of the most sacred places of the Franciscan world. In the early thirteenth century, the chapel stood isolated in the woods, abandoned and in ruins; Saint Francis restored it with his own hands, and here he understood his vocation, founded the Order of Friars Minor in 1209 and, in 1211, received Saint Clare, who took the veil here. The Porziuncola became the heart of the Franciscan movement.
It was here that, according to tradition, in 1216 Francis obtained from the Pope the Pardon of Assisi, a plenary indulgence for all those who visited the chapel, still granted every year on 1 and 2 August, when thousands of pilgrims come to Santa Maria degli Angeli. Next to the Porziuncola, the Cappella del Transito, once the infirmary of the friars, is the place where Francis died on the evening of 3 October 1226, lying on the bare ground. The large basilica, built between 1569 and 1679 to a design by Galeazzo Alessi to protect these places, also contains the Roseto, the rose garden where, according to legend, Francis threw himself into a bush of thorns to overcome a temptation, and the roses lost their thorns: still today, the roses that grow here are without thorns.
Tip: the basilica is easily reached from the Assisi railway station; visit the Porziuncola early in the morning, in silence.
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