Basilica of San Francesco d’Assisi
The day after Saint Francis was canonized in 1228, Pope Gregory IX laid the foundation stone of a church to hold his body. Brother Elias built it quickly on the western edge of Assisi, and it was consecrated in 1253. It is really two churches, one above the other, with the saint’s tomb in a crypt beneath both.
The Lower Basilica is low, dim and vaulted, a place of prayer around the tomb. Its walls are painted by Cimabue, Simone Martini and Pietro Lorenzetti. The Upper Basilica is bright and soaring, one of the first Gothic churches in Italy. Around its nave, twenty-eight great frescoes traditionally attributed to Giotto tell the life of Francis. These paintings, alive with real people and places, changed the course of Western art.
In 1997 an earthquake brought down part of the vault of the Upper Basilica, killing four people and shattering frescoes. Restorers pieced many of them back together from thousands of fragments. The basilica and the Franciscan sites of Assisi are a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
- Built
- 1228–1253
- Style
- Romanesque and Gothic
- Where
- Assisi, Italy
- Map
- Find it on OpenStreetMap
- Read about
- Saint Francis of Assisi · His tomb