As I mentioned in the main body of the gallery, Assisi sits upon a hill. In this shot I am looking roughly west south-west across the plains at the foot of the hill. Specifically we are looking toward the nearby town of Santa Maria degli Angeli (Saint Mary of the Angels), which is still part of the Assisi municipality. It's about 4 km away from the main town. This has probably been mentioned previously, but just to recap for any late entrants.

Although Francis hailed from Assisi, he did a lot of his earlier work in Santa Maria degli Angeli. "But wait," I hear you ask, "didn't he live a life of simplicity and poverty? And isn't that a rather grand looking church?"

That is correct on both counts. The church that you see here is the Basilica di Santa Maria degli Angeli (the Papal Basilica of Saint Mary of the Angels in Assisi), reputed to be the 7th largest Christian church in the world.

However the church that is contained WITHIN this church (yes, you read that correctly) is in fact quite humble. It is the Porziuncola or Portiuncula (take your pick; both names refer to a small plot of land), a minute chapel measuring only about 5.5 x 3.2 m. When it was built isn't clear. There may have been a church here as early as the 300s AD, though more likely the one that is here now is a successor to that one. Some sources (yes, Wikipedia) claim that the chapel dates from the 9th century. What is clear is that by the time of Saint Francis in the late 12th and early 13th centuries, it was in a bad way, and sitting in the middle of what was at the time a wood of oak trees outside the town of Santa Maria degli Angeli.

It was one of several churches that Saint Francis restored, and was donated to Francis by a local abbot on condition that it become the motherhouse of his new religious order. It thus became the spiritual home of the Franciscans, and was reputed to be Francis' favourite. He had a monastic cell about 15 metres away from it. When he felt that the end was approaching, he asked to be taken back there. He died there a few weeks later.

However the problem was obvious. As the legend of Saint Francis grew, a 5.5 x 3.2 m church was hardly well-equipped to be a place of pilgrimage. A range of small buildings were clustered around the church over time, until they were ordered removed by Pope Pius V in the 1500s, aside from the one containing the cell in which St Francis died. This allowed the construction of the Basilica to enclose the old church to begin in 1569, though the ever present lack of funds meant that it was not completed until 1667.

Part of it collapsed during an earthquake in 1832, with reconstruction done between 1836 and 1840.

Unfortunately we didn't have the time to see this, and in reality back then I didn't even know that it was there when we visited.

That is, 7 years ago at the time of writing. Not long after this shot was taken we mounted up in the air conditioned coach, which was then pointed in the general direction of Napoli. You can pick up the story in that gallery.

Will I ever be back there to see that small church? I'd question the likelihood. Time and money; neither are infinite, and the former is in shorter supply than the latter. But in retrospect, I'm glad to have at least spent a morning here, on a sunny day now more than 7 years past.