From here I took the bus up to Assisi proper, which sits on the spine of what my Frommer's guide calls "the rise to Mt. Subasio." (I'm not sure if a rise is an actual geographical term or not, and I can't think of a better way to say it than that anyway.) In the noon sun the Romanesque city walls looked almost white--lighter and a bit pinker than those of Tuscan hill towns.
The Piazza di San Francesco is edged with Romanesque colonnades as well, though the Basilica of San Francesco is gothic. Currently the Piazza is occupied by an exhibit (or a sculpture?) consisting of a large group of black boulders, each bearing a rectangular groove that looks as though water might flow through it at some point. It's supposed to be some sort of monument to peace, I gathered from a poster. It does seem appropriately Franciscan.
Inside the Basilica there's an upper church and a lower church, both heavily frescoed, in true gothic fashion. These frescoes are masterworks by Giotto and Cimabue, though. The colors, especially the blues, are glorious. And it's wonderfully fitting that the cathedral for this saint, whose thinking helped pave the way for Renaissance humanism, should be adorned by the work of a painter whose frescoes helped pave the way for the Renaissance in art.
This week has been a study in what it is and is not acceptable to do as a tourist. In some cathedrals (such as the Siena Duomo), photography is fine as long as you don't use flash or tripod; in some places it's not allowed but the attendants grudgingly tolerate it; in some places the attendants take the rule very seriously. Most cathedrals also request silence. Some places (Santa Maria degli Angeli) get it; some places (San Marco, in Venice) don't. San Francesco has solved the latter problem by having an attendant say "Silenzio!" sternly into a lavalier microphone whenever people get too loud. A sound system seems decidedly un-Franciscan, but I suppose it's better than giving the place over to the tourists, Venice-style.
The place where the flashbulbs upset me was the crypt, below the lower church, where the relics of St. Francis are housed. I can understand wanting to claim that memory somehow. People seem to feel a special kinship with St. Francis (the Assisi tourist shops bear this out; they sell icons and olive-wood rosaries and crosses, not just typical kitsch). Maybe people feel a connection precisely because of his humanism. So many of the earlier saints seem not quite real. There's something close to glee in the reliquaries in Siena--ridiculously ornate arrangements of bones, and a jeweled gold case for the head of one saint--that brings into the high relief the medieval Christian desire to triumph over the flesh. Anyway, there's a pervasive reverence in St. Francis's crypt. Except when someone tries to sneak a picture and the red-eye reducing strobe goes off.
It seemed more appropriate to me to commemorate the visit with an act requiring silence and contemplation, so I sat in one of the pews and drew.
Obviously it's just a sketch, and the area immediately around the relics was blocked from view by the steady stream of visitors. You can sort of see, behind the main tomb, the darker vault that houses a tiny chapel. Around the tomb are three memorials to St. Francis's companions. In front of it are, appropriately enough, lilies and peace lilies.
Assisi is a lovely town to wander through. I spent a lot of time looking at menus and poking my head into food shops, trying to figure out the ways Umbrian food differs from Tuscan food, and also hoping to get a taste of wild boar (cinghiale) salami, a regional specialty. What I can tell so far is that Umbrian food seems to use meat more, especially game meats; that it looooves its local porcini and truffles (and after a taste of black truffle relish I knew why); that it uses tomatoes less than Tuscan food; and that it's more inclined to add fruit to dishes rather than serve it separately. Of course, this is all a highly subjective, unscientific analysis. I'm clearly going to have to get an Umbrian cookbook to know for sure.
In the Piazza del Comune is the building now known as Santa Maria Minerva, which was a pagan temple in the days long before St. Francis. It's glorious on the outside.
Stepping inside is one of the most jarring architectural experiences I've ever had, because the interior is now a Baroque church, and there's gloppy gilt scrollwork everywhere.
Many of the side streets are much like those in other old Italian towns, steep and narrow. Assisi's streets seem to have more greenery than the norm.
At the top of the town is Rocco Maggiore, the old watch tower.
It's quite a climb, but the view from the top is fantastic. The peak is exposed to the wind, and the air is full of the snapping of the banners on the ramparts. One local thought it was a good day for kite-flying, and he was right:
Below, you can just see the Duomo (San Rufino) and the basilica of Santa Chiara.
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