[Gutenberg 43754] • Pictures in Umbria

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1905 edition. Excerpt: ... chapter xi assisi--san francesco S we mounted the hill the great shrine had seemed to rise higher and higher above us; in the flaming sunshine the olives looked a pale silver against the deep blue sky. When at last we Statue Of took the way to the sr. Francis. monastery, we seemed to have reached a deserted town. Assisi was still and lifeless; the very inn was asleep. Flies and gnats, however, made us sharply feel that the heat gave them extra thirst, and that we were a boon in this absence of human life. We had been told that the Lower Church of the monastery is best seen in morning light, so, instead of beginning our pilgrimage with the first chapter of the saint's story, in Chiesa Nuova, at the top of the town, we turned to the cloister of San Francesco, and passed along it to the terrace, on to which the beautiful porch opens. To-day this porch was full of exquisite effects of light and shadow; near it is Fra Filippo's massive and finely proportioned campanile. The name of the architect of the church is unknown; but it seems fairly attested that the campanile was built by Fra Filippo Campello, who later on became the architect of the church erected by the Assisans, on the site of San Giorgio, in honour of Santa Chiara, or Clara, the first female convert of St. Francis, the foundress of the "Poor Clares." It is strange that the name of the great architect who designed this beautiful church and monastery should be doubtful, especially as San Francesco is said to be almost the first Gothic church built in Italy, and remains to this day one of the purest and most beautiful in style, free from that admixture of Renaissance work which robs so many Italian churches of the reverence and religious inspiration created by our English and so...