The Story of Assisi Part 15

[95] St. Bonaventure was born in 1221 at Bagnora in Umbria, and became General of the franciscan order. Dante, in canto xii. of the _Paradiso_, leaves him to sing the praises of St. Dominic, just as the dominican divine St. Thomas Aquinas had related the story of St.

Francis in the preceding canto.

[96] We have used Miss Lockhart's translation of St. Bonaventure's _Legenda Santa Francisci_.

[97] J. Ruskin, _Mornings in Florence_, iii. Before the Soldan.

[98] xi. _Paradiso_, Cary's translation.

[99] Dante, _Paradiso_, xi., Cary's translation.

[100] A comparison may be made between the long and slender body of the saint here with that in the death of St. Francis in Sta. Croce, where the body is firmly drawn and of more ma.s.sive proportions.

CHAPTER IX

_St. Clare at San Damiano. The Church of Santa Chiara._

"Comme les fleurs, les ames ont leur parfum qui ne trompe jamais."--P. SABATIER. _Vie de S. Francois d'a.s.sise_.

The days of St. Clare from the age of eighteen until her death in 1253 were pa.s.sed within the convent walls of San Damiano, and though peaceful enough, for a mediaeval lady, they were full of events and varied interest.

She was born on the 10th of July 1194 in a.s.sisi of n.o.ble parents, her father being Count Favorino Scifi (spelt also Scefi) the descendant of an ancient Roman family who owned a large palace in the town, and a castle on the slope of Mount Subasio to the east of the ravine where the Carceri lie among the ilex woods. The castle gave the t.i.tle of Count of Sa.s.so Rosso to its owners, and was the cause of much skirmis.h.i.+ng between the Scifi and the Ghislerio who were continually wresting it from each other, until in 1300, during one of these struggles, the walls were razed to the ground and no one sought afterwards to repair its ruins. Of Sa.s.so Rosso a few stones still remain, which, as they catch the morning light, are seen from a.s.sisi like a grey crag projecting from the mountain, high above the road to Spello. When not fighting beneath the walls of his castle Count Favorino was generally away on some skirmis.h.i.+ng expedition, and during his absences, his wife, the Lady Ortolana of the n.o.ble family of the Fiumi, would depart upon a pilgrimage to the south of Italy or even to the Holy Land.[101] An old writer remarks that her name "Ortolana (market gardener) was very appropriate, because from her, as from a well-tended orchard, sprang most n.o.ble plants." After her return from Palestine she one night heard a voice speaking these prophetic words to which she listened with great awe. "Be not afraid Ortolana, for from thee shall arise a light so bright and clear that the darkness of the earth shall be illuminated thereby." So the daughter who was born soon after was called Chiara in memory of the divine message. With so pious a mother it is not surprising that Clare should have grown up thoughtful and fond of praying; we even hear of her seeking solitary corners in the palace where she would be found saying her rosary, using pebbles like the hermits of old instead of beads upon a chain.

But her evident inclination for a religious life in no way alarmed Count Favorino, who had made up his mind that she should marry a wealthy young a.s.sisan n.o.ble, for even at an early age she showed great promise of beauty. "Her face was oval," says a chronicler, "her forehead s.p.a.cious, her complexion brilliant, and her eyebrows and hair very fair. A celestial smile played in her eyes and around her mouth; her nose was well-proportioned and slightly aquiline; of good stature she was rather inclined to stoutness, but not to excess." A little while and her fate in life would have been sealed in the ordinary way, and she would have continued to look out upon the world through the barred windows of some old a.s.sisan palace; but great changes were being wrought in the town even when Clare had just pa.s.sed into girlhood. With the rest of her fellow-citizens, rich and poor, she was destined to feel the potent influence of one who suddenly appeared in their midst like an inspired prophet of old, calling on all to repent, and picturing higher ideals in life than any had hitherto dreamed of.

Although her first meeting with St. Francis has not been recorded by any early biographer, we may be sure that from the age of fourteen, and perhaps even before, the story of his doings had been familiar to her, for the stir his conversion made among the people, his quarrels with his father, and the many followers he gained, even among the n.o.bles, were of too extraordinary a nature to pa.s.s without comment in the family of the Scifi.[102] Their palace being near the Porta Nuova it is certain that Clare and her younger sister Agnes must have often seen St. Francis pa.s.s on his way to San Damiano, carrying the bricks which he had begged from door to door to repair its crumbling walls, and heard him scoffed at by the children and cursed by his angry father. As his fame as a preacher grew the Scifi family hurried with the rest to listen to his sermons in the cathedral, or perhaps even in the market-place, where he would stand upon the steps of the old temple and gather the peasants around him on a market day. But the decisive time arrived in the year 1212, when St. Francis, by then the acknowledged founder of a new order sanctioned by the Pope, and no longer jeered at as a mad enthusiast, came to preach during Lent in the church of San Giorgio. It was the parish church of the Scifi, and the whole family attended every service. Clare was then eighteen, young enough to be carried away by the words of the franciscan and build for herself a life outside her present existence; old enough to have felt unbearable the trammels of a degraded age, and to long, during those years of warfare to which all the cities of the valley were subjected, for an escape to where peace and purity could be found. Only dimly she saw her way to a perfect love of Christ. The preacher's words were addressed to all, but she felt them as an especial call to herself, and unhesitatingly she resolved to seek out the friar at the Portiuncula and ask his help and counsel in what was no easy task. Instinctively knowing her mother could be of no aid, even if she sympathised in her cravings for a more spiritual life, she gained the confidence of her aunt, Bianca Guelfucci, who all through played her part regardless of Count Favorino's possible revenge.

Even during the first two years of his mission St. Francis was accustomed to receive many men who wished to leave home and comforts, and tramp along the country roads with him, but when the young Chiara Scifi threw herself at his feet imploring him to help her to enter upon a new way of life, his heart was troubled, and, reflecting on what wide results his preaching was taking, fear even may have formed part of his surprise. Bernard of Quintavalle he had bidden sell all that he had, distribute it to the poor, and join him at the leper houses; but before allowing Clare to take the veil he sought to prove her vocation beyond a doubt, and bade her go from door to door through the town begging her bread, clad in rough sack-cloth with a hood drawn about her face. Her piety only increased until St. Francis, believing that he was called upon to help her, resolved to act the part of the spiritual knight errant.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DOOR THROUGH WHICH ST. CLARE LEFT THE PALAZZO SCIFI]

On Palm Sunday, arrayed in their richest clothes, the members of the Scifi and the Fiumi families attended high ma.s.s in the cathedral, and with the rest of the citizens went up to receive the branches of palms. But to the astonishment of all Clare remained kneeling as if wrapt in a dream, and in vain the bishop waited for her to follow the procession to the altar. All eyes were upon her as the bishop, with paternal tenderness, came down from the altar steps to where the young girl knelt and placed the palm in her hand. That night Clare left her father's house for ever. A small door in the Scifi palace is still shown through which she is said to have escaped. It had been walled up for some time, but the fragile girl gifted that night with superhuman strength and courage, tore down timber and stones and joined Bianca Guelfucci, who was waiting with some trembling maidservants where the arch spans the street, to accompany her to the Portiuncula (see p.

104). Great was the consternation in the family when next morning her flight was discovered, and news came that she had found shelter in the benedictine convent near Bastia. Count Favorino and his wife lost no time in following her, fully persuaded that by threats or entreaties they would be able to induce her to return home and marry the man of her father's choice; but they knew little of the strength of character which lay hidden beneath the gentle nature of the eldest and hitherto most docile of their daughters. The violent words of her father and the tears of her mother in no way shook Clare's determination; approaching the altar she placed one hand upon it while with the other she raised her veil, and facing her parents showed them the close cut hair which marked her as the bride of Jesus Christ. No earthly power, she said, should sever her from the life she had chosen of her own free will, and crest-fallen they left the convent without another word. It was hardly surprising that Agnes, the second sister, who sometimes went to see St. Clare at Bastia, should wish to take the veil. At this the fury of Count Favorino knew no bounds, and he sent his brother Monaldo with several armed followers, among whom may have been Clare's slighted lover, to force Agnes, if persuasion failed, to abandon her vocation. She was at their mercy but refused to leave the convent, so they caught her by her long fair hair and dragged her across the fields towards the town, kicking her as they went; her cries filled the air, "Clare, my sister, help, so that I may not be taken from my heavenly spouse." The prayers of Clare were heard, for suddenly the slight form of the girl became as lead in the arms of the soldiers, and in vain they tried to lift her. Monaldo, beside himself with rage, drew his sword to strike her when his arm dropt withered and useless by his side. Clare, who had by this time come upon the scene, begged them to desist from their cruel acts, and cowed by what had happened they slunk away, leaving the sisters to return to the convent.

St. Francis seeing the devotion and steady vocation of both Clare and Agnes, and doubtless foreseeing that many would follow their example, began to seek for some shelter where they could lead a life of prayer and labour. Again the Benedictines of Mount Subasio came forward with a gift, offering another humble sanctuary which the saint had repaired some years before. This was San Damiano, a chapel so old that none could tell its origin; the vague legend that it stands on the site of a pagan necropolis seems confirmed by a lofty fragment of Roman masonry which juts up on the roadside between the Porta Nuova and San Damiano. With his own hands St. Francis built a few rude cells near the chapel, resembling the cl.u.s.ter of huts by the Portiuncula, and here the "Poor Ladies" were to pa.s.s their days in prayer and manual labour. The little humble grey stone building among the olive trees with the pomgranates flowering against its walls, so different to a convent of the present day, must have seemed to Clare the realisation of a freer life than ever she had known before. Others felt its charm and before long several friends had joined her besides Bianca Guelfucci, while upon the death of Count Favorino, Madonna Ortolana received the habit from the hands of St. Francis together with her youngest daughter Beatrice. The fame of the order spread far and wide, gaining so many novices that several new houses were founded in Italy even during the first few years. In those early days St. Clare was given no written law to follow, but like the brethren she and her nuns learnt all the perfection of a religious life from St. Francis, who would often stop at San Damiano on his way to and from the town. He did not allow them to go beyond their boundaries, but a busy life was to be pa.s.sed in their cells; owning nothing, they were to depend entirely upon what the brothers could beg for them in the town and country round, and when provisions were scarce they fasted. In return the nuns spun the grey stuff for the habits of the friars and the linen for their altars; and after St. Francis received the Stigmata, St. Clare fas.h.i.+oned sandals for him with s.p.a.ce for the nails so that he might walk with more ease. Often the poor came to seek help at her hands, and many times the sick were tended in a little mud hut near her cell which she used as a hospital. Silently her life was pa.s.sed, and to those who looked on from the outside perhaps it might have seemed of small avail compared with the very apparent results of St.

Francis' endeavours to help his fellow creatures. But very quietly she was guiding the women of mediaeval Italy towards higher aims, for even those who could not follow her into the cloister were aided in their lives at home by the thought of the pure-souled gentle nun of San Damiano. Not the least important part of her work was the womanly sympathy and help which she gave to St. Francis. He turned to her when in trouble, and it was she who encouraged him to continue preaching to the people when, at one time he thought that his vocation was to be a life of solitary prayer and not of constant contact with mankind. He counted on her prayers, and trusting in her counsel went forward once more to preach the words of redemption. From her lonely cell she watched his work with tender solicitude, and when blind and ill he came for the last time to San Damiano she tended to his wants in a little hut she erected for him not far from the convent whence, across the vineyard and olive grove which separated them, the first strains of his glorious Canticle to the Sun came to her one morning. Her gentle influence played an important part in his life, giving him a friends.h.i.+p which is one of the most beautiful things to dwell on in their lives. Some have sneered at its purity, and compared so ideal a connection to a commonplace mediaeval tale of monk and nun; but it is degrading even to hint at such an ending to the love of these two for each other, and impossible to believe it after reading M. Sabatier's beautiful chapter on St. Clare, where he touches, in some of his most charming pages, upon a side of St. Francis' character that most biographers have but little understood.

A beautiful story in the _Fioretti_ relates how once St. Clare, desiring greatly to eat with St. Francis, a boon he had never accorded her, was granted the request at the earnest prayer of the brethren, "and that she may be the more consoled," he said, "I will that this breaking of bread take place in St. Mary of the Angels; for she has been so long shut up in S. Damian that it will rejoice her to see again the House of Mary, where her hair was shorn off, and she became the bride of Christ." Once more St. Clare came to the plain of the Portiuncula, and the saint spoke so sweetly and eloquently of heavenly things that all remained wrapped in ecstacy, oblivious of the food which was spread before them on the floor and, as Clare dwelt in divine contemplation, a great flame sprang up and shrouded them in celestial light. The a.s.sisans and the people of Bettona, looking down from their walls upon the plain, thought that the Portiuncula was on fire, and hurried to the a.s.sistance of their beloved saint. "But coming close to the House," says the _Fioretti_, "they entered within, and found St. Francis and St. Clare with all their company in contemplation wrapt in G.o.d as they sat round the humble board."

Comforted by this spiritual feast St. Clare returned to San Damiano, where she was expected with great anxiety, as it had been imagined that St. Francis might have sent her to rule some other convent, "wherefore the sisters rejoiced exceedingly when they saw her face again." Those were peaceful and happy days, but sorrow came when news reached her that St. Francis was near his end; "she wept most bitterly, and refused to be comforted," for she too was ill, and feared to die before she could see his face again. This fear she signified through a brother unto the Blessed Francis, and when the saint, who loved her with a singular and paternal affection, heard it, he had pity on her; and considering that her desire to see him once more could not be fulfilled in the future, he sent her a letter with his benediction and absolving her from every fault.... "Go and tell sister Clare to lay aside all sadness and sorrow, for now she cannot see me, but of a truth before her death both she and her sisters shall see me and be greatly comforted." But the last she saw of him was through a lattice window, when they brought his dead body for the nuns to see and kiss the pierced hands and feet (see p. 119).

[Ill.u.s.tration: SAN DAMIANO, SHOWING THE WINDOW WITH THE LEDGE WHENCE ST. CLARE ROUTED THE SARACENS]

A strange thing happened to disturb the peaceful serenity of their lives at San Damiano in the year 1234, when the army of Frederic II, was fighting in the north of Italy, and a detachment of Saracen troops under one of his generals, Vitale d'Anversa, came through Umbria, pillaging the country as they pa.s.sed. a.s.sisi was a desirable prey, as it had been to many before them, and coming to the convent of San Damiano they scaled its walls, preparatory to a final rush upon the town. The terror of the nuns may be imagined, and running to the cell where Clare lay ill in bed they cowered round her "like frightened doves when the hawk has stooped upon their dovecote." Taking the Blessed Sacrament, which she was allowed to keep in a little chapel next to her cell, she proceeded to face the whole army, trusting like St. Martin in the power of prayer and personal courage. As she walked towards the window overlooking the small courtyard a voice spoke to her from the ciborium saying, "a.s.sisi will have much to suffer, but my arm shall defend her." Raising the Blessed Sacrament on high she stood at the open window, against which the soldiers had already placed a ladder; those who were ascending, as they looked up towards her, fell back blinded, while the others took to flight, and thus cloister and city were saved through the intercession of the gentle saint. Vitale d'Anversa, who had not been present at the prodigy, probably thinking the soldiers had failed in their enterprise through lack of valour, came with a still larger company of men, and led them in person to storm the town. St. Clare, hearing what peril encompa.s.sed a.s.sisi, and being asked by the citizens to intercede with Heaven as the enemy had sworn to bury them beneath their city walls, gathered all her nuns about her, and knelt in prayer with them. At dawn the next morning a furious tempest arose, scattering the tents of the Saracens in every direction, and causing such a panic that they took refuge in hasty flight. The grat.i.tude of the citizens increased their love for St.

Clare, as all attributed their release to her prayers, and to this day she is regarded as the deliverer of her country.

One cannot help regretting that while so many contemporary chroniclers have left detailed and varied accounts of St. Francis, they only casually allude to St. Clare, calling her "a sweet spring blossom," or "the chief rival of the Blessed Francis in the observance of Gospel perfection," but leaving later writers to form their own pictures of the saint. And the picture they give is always of a silent and prayerful nun, beautiful of feature, sweet and gentle of disposition, coming ever to the help of those who needed it, and acting the part of a guardian angel to the a.s.sisans. Her horizon was bounded by the mountains of the Spoletan valley; and from the outside world, on which her influence worked so surely during her life and for long centuries after her death, only faint echoes reached her when a pope or a cardinal came to see her, or a princess wrote her a letter from some distant country. Among the many royal and n.o.ble people who had entered a Poor Clare sisterhood, or like St. Elizabeth of Hungary had joined the Third Order, was the Blessed Agnes, daughter of the King of Bohemia, who, kindled with a desire for a religious life upon hearing the story of St. Clare, refused the hand of Frederick II, and pa.s.sed her life in a convent. Often she wrote to the a.s.sisan abbess getting in reply most charming letters, beginning "To her who is dearer to me than any other mortal," or "To the daughter of the King of Kings, to the Queen of Virgins, to the worthy spouse of Jesus Christ; the unworthy servant of the poor nuns of San Damiano sends greetings and rejoicings in the good fortune of living always in the extremest poverty." These two never met, but their friends.h.i.+p was a close one, and their correspondence, of which many letters are preserved, ceased only with their death.

St. Clare survived St. Francis twenty-seven years, and they were sad years for one, who, like her clung so devoutly to his rule and teaching. She lived to see the first divisions among the franciscans, and before she died the corner-stone of the great Basilica had been raised, filling her with dismay for the future, for in its very grandeur and beauty she saw the downfall of the franciscan ideal. Not only did she witness all these changes, but in her own convent she had many battles to fight for the preservation of the rule she loved, she even courageously opposed the commands of the Pope himself who wished to mould the nuns to his wishes as he had done the friars. Even during the lifetime of St. Francis, while he was absent on a distant pilgrimage, Gregory IX, then Cardinal Ugolino, persuaded St. Clare of the necessity of having a written rule, and gave her that of the Benedictine nuns. But when she found that, although it was strict enough, it allowed the holding of property in community, which was entirely against the spirit of her order, she refused to agree to the innovation. So upon the saint's return he composed a written rule for the sisters, so strict, it is said, that its perusal drew tears from the eyes of the Cardinal Ugolino. Still she had to fight the battle of loyalty to a dead saint's memory; for the very year that Gregory came to a.s.sisi for the canonisation of St. Francis he paid a visit to St.

Clare, and with earnest words endeavoured to persuade her to mitigate her rule. She held so firmly to her way that the Pope thought she might perhaps be thinking of the vow of poverty which she had made at the Portiuncula, and told her he could absolve her from it through the powers of his papal keys. Then Clare summoned all her courage as she faced the Pontiff, and said to him these simple words which showed him he need try no more to tempt her from duty, "Ah holy father," she cried, "I crave for the absolution of my sins, but I desire not to be absolved from following Jesus Christ."

Gregory had often been puzzled by the unique unworldliness of St.

Francis; his admiration for St. Clare was even more profound, and in reading his letters after leaving the franciscan abbess one forgets that he was over eighty at the time. With him she had gained her point once and for all, but upon his death she had to oppose the wishes of Innocent IV, who did all in his power to merge the franciscan order of Poor Clares into an ordinary Benedictine community. Again it ended in the triumph of St. Clare, and the day before her death she had the joy of receiving the news that the Pope had issued a papal bull sanctioning the rule for which both St. Francis and she had fought; namely, that they were to live absolutely poor without any worldly possession of any kind. "N'est-ce pas," says M. Sabatier, "un des plus beaux tableaux de l'histoire religieuse, que celui de cette femme qui, pendant plus d'un quart de siecle, soutient contre les papes qui se succedent sur le trone pontifical une lutte de tous les instants; qui demeure egalement respectueuse et inebranlable, et ne consent a mourir qu'apres avoir remporte la victoire?"

St. Clare during the remaining years of her life suffered continually from ill-health, and it was from a bed of infirmity that she so ardently prayed the Pope to sanction her rule of poverty, and enjoined the sisterhood to keep its tenets faithfully. Like St. Francis, brave and cheerful to the last, she called her weeping companions around her to give them her final blessing and farewell. Among them knelt the Blessed Agnes, who had come from her nunnery in Florence to a.s.sist her sister, and the three holy brethren Leo, Angelo and Juniper. On the 11th of August 1253, the feast of St. Rufino, as she was preparing to leave the world they heard her speak, but so softly that the words were lost to them. "Mother, with whom are you conversing?" asked one of the nuns, and she answered: "Sister, I am speaking with this little soul of mine, now blessed, to whom the glory of paradise is already opening."

Then as the evening closed in and they were still watching, a great light was seen to fill the doorway leading from the oratory of St.

Clare to her cell; and from out of it came a long procession of white-robed virgins led by the Queen of Heaven, whose head was crowned with a diadem of s.h.i.+ning gold, and whose eyes sent forth such splendour as might have changed the night into the brightest day. And as each of the celestial visitors stooped to kiss St. Clare, the watching nuns knew that her soul had already reached its home.

Once the little chapel of San Damiano has been seen there can be no fear of ever forgetting the charm attached to the memory of St. Clare, for she has left there something of her own character and personality, which we feel instinctively without being able quite to explain its presence. So near the town, only just outside its walls, this little sanctuary yet remains as in the olden times, one of the most peaceful spots that could have been chosen for a nunnery; but the silence which falls upon one while resting on the stone seats before entering the courtyard, has this difference with the silence of such a piazza as that of San Rufino or of some of the a.s.sisan streets; that there the buildings tell of an age which is dead whose memories raise no responsive echoes in our hearts, whereas San Damiano is filled with the a.s.sociations of those who, living so long ago, yet have left the atmosphere of their presence as a living influence among us. As we look at the steep paths below us leading through the fields and the oak trees down to the plain, to Rivo-Torto and the Portiuncula, we think how often St. Francis went up and down it whenever he pa.s.sed to see St. Clare and her sisters. And how many times did Brother Bernard come with messages when he lay dying, and news was anxiously awaited at San Damiano; then along the gra.s.s path skirting the hill from Porta Mojano were seen the crowds of n.o.bles, townsfolk, peasants and friars bearing the dead body of the saint to San Giorgio, and pausing awhile at the convent for the love of St. Clare. A pope with all his cardinals next pa.s.ses, on a visit to the young abbess; St. Bonaventure stops to ask her prayers; while the poor and the ill were ever knocking at the convent door to obtain her help or a word of kindly sympathy. In the Umbrian land it is so easy to realise these things, they are more than simply memories for those who have time to pause and dream awhile; and sometimes it has seemed, while reading the _Fioretti_ or Brother Leo's chronicle beneath the olive trees of San Damiano, that we have slipped back through the ages, and looking up we half expect to see the hurrying figure of St. Francis moving quickly in and out among the trees. Suddenly the low sound of chanting comes through the open door of the convent reaching us like the incessant drone of a swarm of bees in the suns.h.i.+ne, until it dies away, and brown-clothed, sandalled brethren pa.s.s out across the courtyard, and two by two disappear down the hill on their way to the Portiuncula.

They bring a whole gallery of portraits before our eyes, of brethren we read of, the companions of St. Francis; but when we look along the path they have taken and see the church of the Angeli standing high in the midst of the broad valley, its dome showing dark purple against the afternoon light, where we had thought to catch a glimpse of the Portiuncula and a circle of mud huts, the dream of the olden time fades suddenly away. As we turn to enter the little church of San Damiano with the image of the great church of the plain still in our thoughts, we feel how much we owe to the reverence of the people and the friars who have kept it so simple and unadorned, its big stones left rough and weather-beaten as when St. Francis came to prepare a dwelling-house for sister Clare. Truly says M. Sabatier, "ce pet.i.t coin de terre ombrienne sera, pour nos descendants, comme ce puits de Jacob ou Jesus s'a.s.sit un instant, un des parvis preferes du culte en esprit et en verite."

The church is very small and dim, with no frescoed walls or altar pictures to arouse the visitor's interest, and only its connection with the names of Francis and Clare bring the crowds who come to pray here. Even the crucifix which spoke to St. Francis, telling him to rebuild the ruined sanctuary, no longer hangs in the choir, but is now in the keeping of the nuns in Santa Chiara. A few relics are kept in the cupboard--a pectoral cross given by St. Bonaventure, the bell with which St. Clare called the sisters to office, her breviary written by Brother Leo in his neat, small writing, and the tabernacle of alabaster which she held up before the invading host of Saracens upon that memorable occasion. There is also a small loaf of bread which recalls the well-known story recounted in the _Fioretti_ (cap.

x.x.xiii.) of how Pope Innocent IV, came to see St. Clare, "to hear her speak of things celestial and divine; and as they were thus discoursing together on diverse matters, St. Clare ordered dinner to be made ready, and the bread to be laid on the table so that the Holy Father might bless it; and when their spiritual conference was finished, St. Clare, kneeling most reverently, prayed him to bless the bread which was on the table. The Holy Father replied: 'Most faithful Sister Clare, I will that thou shouldst bless this bread and make upon it the sign of the most blessed Cross of Christ, to whom thou hast so entirely given thyself.' St. Clare said: 'Holy Father, pardon me, for I should be guilty of too great a presumption if in the presence of the Vicar of Christ, I, who am but a miserable woman, should presume to give such a benediction.' And the Pope answered: 'That this should not be ascribed to presumption, but to the merit of obedience, I command thee by holy obedience to make the sign of the Holy Cross on this bread, and to bless it in the name of G.o.d.' Then St. Clare, as a true daughter of obedience, most devoutly blessed that bread with the sign of the Holy Cross. And marvellous to say, incontinently on all the loaves the sign of the Holy Cross appeared most fairly impressed; then of that bread part was eaten and part kept for the miracle's sake."

A ring belonging to St. Clare was also kept here, until in the year 1615 a Spanish franciscan vicar-general with his secretary came to visit San Damiano, and such was his devotion for anything that had belonged to the saintly abbess that when a few months later the relics were being shown to some other visitors, the precious ring was missing. A great disturbance arose in the city, and angry letters were speedily sent after the Spanish priest as suspicion had fallen upon him at once; he did not deny that he had piously stolen the ring, but as it was now well upon its way to Spain where, he a.s.sured the irate a.s.sisans, it would be much honoured and well cared for, he refused to return it. The citizens and friars still regret the day that the Spanish dignitary and his secretary called at San Damiano.

The small chapel out of the nave was built in the middle of the seventeenth century to contain the large Crucifix which is still there, and whose story is very famous. In 1634 Brother Innocenzo of Palermo was sent to the convent to carve a crucifix for the friars, his sanct.i.ty and the talent he possessed as an artist being well known. After nine days he completed all except the head, and on returning next morning after early ma.s.s he found that mysterious hands had fas.h.i.+oned it during the night; not only was it of wonderful workmans.h.i.+p, but looking at it from three different points of view three different expressions were seen--of peace, of agony, and of death. The fame of the Crucifix spread throughout Umbria, and people flocked to San Damiano. "Now, the devil," says a chronicler, "very wrath to see such devotion in so many hearts, turned his mind to finding out some means of sowing seeds of discord. Through his doing there arose in a.s.sisi a whisper that owing to the rapidly growing fame of this Crucifix, the ancient one of the cathedral would lose the veneration in which it had hitherto been held."

Now before placing the Crucifix of San Damiano in its place over the high altar the monks settled that it should be carried in solemn procession through a.s.sisi. "But," writes the angry chronicler, "those who had joined this diabolical conspiracy against our Crucifix were not slow to prevent this, and had recourse to the Inquisitor of Perugia, who was induced to send his vicar to stop the procession, and bid the monks of San Damiano to keep their Crucifix hidden and allow no one to see it." There arose a terrible storm in the troubled community of a.s.sisi, between those who took the part of the "persecuted Crucifix" and those who sided with the jealous canons of the cathedral. Finally, the case was placed before the Pope himself, and all waited anxiously the result of his investigations. A duplicate of the Crucifix of San Damiano was sent to Rome that it might be well examined by the Pope and the whole college of cardinals, and they not finding in the pious Brother Innocenzio's work anything contrary to the teaching of the gospel, it was unanimously decreed that the Crucifix of San Damiano might receive all the homage and love of the friars and citizens. So on a burning Sunday in August solemn high ma.s.s was sung at the altar of St. Clare in San Damiano and, although the friars were defrauded of their procession, such was the concourse of people who came to gain the plenary indulgence granted by His Holiness that the good friars rejoiced, and were comforted for all the persecution they had suffered on account of this marvellous Crucifix.

What must have been the feelings of Brother Innocenzo as he stood by the high altar and watched the crowd of wors.h.i.+ppers and the women lifting up their streaming eyes to the crucifix he had fas.h.i.+oned in his cell? The devotion to it grew as the years pa.s.sed on, and we read that a century later the monks were obliged "for their greater quiet to transfer it from the choir to the chapel," where it now is, after which the monks could say their office in peace. Now we see it surrounded with votive offerings, and our guide pours forth an incessant stream of praise, and recounts at length numberless miracles.

Through the chapel of the Crucifix we reach the choir of St. Clare, left as when she used it, with the old worm-eaten stalls against the wall. It is probable that originally this was part of the house of the priest who had the keeping of San Damiano before the benedictines gave it to the Poor Clares; for here is shown the recess in the wall where St. Francis hid when his father came to seek for him, and where he is supposed to have lived in hiding for a whole month until the storm should have blown over. It was for the rebuilding of the chapel that he had taken bales of costly stuffs from the Bernardone warehouse in a.s.sisi to sell at the fair of Foligno, and thus called forth the wrath of Messer Pietro. The good priest of San Damiano was so much astonished at this sudden conversion of Francis, that thinking he mocked him he refused to accept the purse of gold, which Francis finally threw on to a dusty window-sill. But the priest soon became his friend, allowing him to remain at San Damiano and partake of such humble fare as he could give, joining him in repairing of the poor ruined chapel.

An artist of the sixteenth century had sought to adorn the altar with a fresco of the Crucifixion which was only discovered a few months ago, but the whitewashed walls and severe simplicity of the rest seem more in keeping with the place than this crude attempt at decoration.

By a rough flight of stairs we reach the small private oratory of St.

Clare, which communicated with her cell and where, in her latter days of illness, she was permitted to keep the Blessed Sacrament. The rest of the convent being strict "clausura," ever since the Marquess of Ripon bought San Damiano from the Italian Government and gave it into the keeping of the franciscan friars, can only be seen by men. Within is the refectory of St. Clare where Innocent IV, dined with her and witnessed the miracle of the loaves, and Eusebio di San Giorgio (1507) has painted in the cloister two fine frescoes of the Annunciation and St. Francis receiving the Stigmata.

But anyone may step out into the small and charming garden of St.

Clare which is on a level with her oratory. Walls rising on either side leave only a narrow vista of the valley where Bevagna, and Montefalco on her hill, can just be seen. Within this small enclosed s.p.a.ce the saint is said to have taken her daily exercise and carefully attended to the flowers, and the friars to this day keep a row of flowers there in memory of her. It will be well on leaving the chapel of San Damiano to look at the open chapel in the courtyard where Tiberio d'a.s.sisi has painted one of his most pleasing compositions.

The Madonna is seated in an Umbrian valley, low lines of hills fade away in the distance, and franciscan saints, among whom St. Jerome with his lion seems curiously out of place, surround her, while at her feet is placed the kneeling figure of the nun who succeeded St. Clare as abbess. It is signed and dated 1517, while the fresco on the side-wall of St. Sebastian and St. Roch was painted five years later.

In another corner of the courtyard, near the entrance, is a painting in a niche of the Madonna and saints by some Umbrian artist who felt the influence of both Giotto and Simone Martini, so that we have a curious, if pleasing result.

SANTA CHIARA

St. Clare was no sooner dead than the people, as they had done with St. Francis, sought to honour her memory, but in this case, Innocent IV, being in a.s.sisi for the consecration of the Franciscan Basilica, the funeral service was conducted by the Pope and cardinals. Such a gathering of church dignitaries, a.s.sisan n.o.bles, priors and people had certainly never been seen in the humble convent of San Damiano; their presence, though honouring the saint, filled the hearts of the nuns with sorrow for they knew they had come to take the body of St. Clare to a.s.sisi. With tears they consented to its being placed in safety in San Giorgio, but only on the condition that they might eventually be allowed to live near her tomb in some humble shelter. San Damiano without her, alive or dead, meant little to them, and they were ready to abandon a home of so many memories to go where they and their successors could guard her body to the end of time. Devotion to her memory and belief in her sanct.i.ty was not solely confined to them; when the friars rose to intone the service of the dead, Pope Innocent signified that there should be silence, and to the wonder of all ordered high ma.s.s to be sung and the funeral service to be changed into one of triumph, in honour of her who he believed was already with the Virgins in heaven. It was a kind of canonisation, but could not be regarded as valid without the usual preliminaries being performed, and the cardinals, more cautious and less enthusiastic than His Holiness, persuaded him to wait and in the meanwhile allow the ordinary service to proceed. To this he consented, and then amidst music and singing the Pope led the people up the hill where years before another saint had been borne to the same church of San Giorgio, and as on that day a funeral ceremony became a triumphal procession.

Innocent IV, died soon after, and it was Alexander IV, who in September 1255, two years after her death, canonized St. Clare in a Bull replete with magnificent eulogy in which there is a constant play upon her name: "Clara claris praeclara meritis, magnae in coelo claritate gloriae, ac in terra miraculorum sublimum clare gaudet ... O admiranda Clarae beatae claritas." Another two years were allowed to elapse before they began to erect a building to her memory; besides the readiness shown by every town to honour their saints, the a.s.sisans had especial cause to remember St. Clare, as she had twice saved them from the Saracen army of Frederic II. Willingly the magistrates and n.o.bles, besides many strangers who had heard of the saint's renown, contributed money for the new building, and Fra Filippo Campello the minorite was chosen as the architect. Fine as his new work proved to be it was rather the copy of a masterpiece than the inspiration of a great architect, which makes it more probable that he was only employed in completing the church of San Francesco from the designs of that first mysterious architect, and not, as some have said, its sole builder.

The canons of San Rufino offered the church and hospital of San Giorgio which belonged to them. A more fitting site for the church to be raised in honour of St. Clare could not have been chosen, for it was here that St. Francis had learnt to read and write as a child under the guidance of the parish priest; here he preached his first sermon, and later touched the heart of Clare by his words during the lenten services; and here both of them were laid in their stone urns until their last resting places were ready. So around the little old parish church with its many memories, and within sight of the Scifi palace, arose "as if by magic" the new temple with its tall and slender campanile. The hospital enlarged and improved became the convent, and the church was used by the nuns as a choir, the rest of the large building, which they could only see through iron gratings, being for the use of the congregation. With its alternate layers of pink and cream-coloured stone, wheel window and finely modelled door, the church fits well into its sunny piazza, and is a beautiful ending to the eastern side of a.s.sisi. But in building it Fra Filippo forgot the crumbling nature of the soil, and failed to overcome the difficulty of position as had been done so admirably at San Francesco, so that in 1351 it became necessary to prop up the sides by strong flying b.u.t.tresses, which, while serving as an imposing arched entrance to the side of the church, sadly detract from the feeling of solidity of the main building. A darker stone with no rosy tints was used for the convent, which makes it look very grim and old as it rises out of a soft and silvery setting of olive trees on the hillside, with orchards near of peaches and almonds. There is a great charm in the brown, weather-beaten convent, though a certain sadness when we remember, in looking at its tiny windows like holes in the wall through which only narrow vistas of the beautiful valley can be seen, how changed must be the lives of these cloistered nuns from those of the Poor Ladies of San Damiano in the time of St. Clare. They are now an order of the orthodox type, an order given to prayer and not to labour, and seeing no human face from the outside world except through an iron grating. So early as 1267 their connection with the franciscan brotherhood ceased; the brethren no longer heard their confessions or begged for them through the land as St. Francis had decreed; they lived under the patronage of the Pope, who declared their convent to be under the especial jurisdiction of the Holy See, and on the feast of St. Francis called upon the nuns to send a pound of wax candles in sign of tribute. As the Pope had often in olden times become master of a.s.sisi so now he obtained the rule over her monastic inst.i.tutions, gaining the temporal allegiance of the religious, as he had gained that of the citizens.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SANTA CHIARA]