The Story of Assisi

Often while reading the Italian chroniclers we forget that a life of chivalry, song, tournament, and pagan pleasure-making was passed in a mediæval town even while war, pestilen...

The Cathedral of San Rufino. Roman Assisi. The Palazzo Pubblico. The Chiesa Nuova. S. Paolo. Sta. Maria Maggiore. S. Quirico. S. Appolinare. S. Pietro. The Confraternities (Chie...

The sanctuary of the Portiuncula has, in its present surroundings, rightly been called a jewel within a casket--a casket indeed too large for so small a gem. But the great Churc...

All who ascend the hill of the Seraphic City must feel its indescribable charm--intangible, mysterious, and quite distinct from the beauty of the Umbrian valley. "Why," we ask o...

These three places near Assisi, so intimately associated with St. Francis, were in a way emblematic of the various stages in the rise and growth of his young community, and we s...

The days of St. Clare from the age of eighteen until her death in 1253 were passed within the convent walls of San Damiano, and though peaceful enough, for a mediæval lady, they...

"O brother mine, O beautiful brother, O brother of love, build me a castle which shall have neither stone nor iron. O beautiful brother, build me a city which shall have neither...

The work of Cimabue, grand and noble as it is, yet gives the impression of belonging to remote times, between which and that of Giotto, his pupil, a great gulf is set. In both c...

Giotto in the Lower Church had felt his way towards the full expression of his genius; succeeding so well in the four Allegories that he was chosen to illustrate the life of St....

The best masters of Tuscany having, by the beginning of the thirteenth century, covered most of the walls of San Francesco with choice work, it now remained for Siena to send ar...

"Il semble au premier coup d'oeil que le rève de François d'Assise a dû amener la fin de tout l'art et de toute noble vie. Chose étrange! ce sordide mendiant fut le père de l'ar...