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Assisi

Town and administrative division in Italy

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It is generally regarded as the birthplace of the Latin poet Propertius, born around 50–45 BC. It is the birthplace of St. Francis, who founded the Order of Friars Minor in that town in 1208, and of St. Clare of Assisi (Chiara d'Offreducci), who, with St. Francis, founded the Order of Poor Ladies, which later became the Order of Poor Clares after her death. In 1838, St. Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows was also born in Assisi.

History

The earliest attested people of Assisi were the Umbri. In 77 AD Pliny the Elder described Regio VI Umbria and said that the Umbri were thought to be the oldest inhabitants of Italy. The people of Assisi were mentioned by name. The Romans took control of central Italy after the Battle of Sentinum in 295 BC. They built the flourishing municipium Asisium on a series of terraces on Monte Subasio. Roman remains can still be found in Assisi: city walls, the forum (now Piazza del Comune), a theatre, an amphitheatre and the Temple of Minerva (now transformed into the Church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva). In 1997, the remains of a Roman villa were also discovered containing several well-preserved rooms with frescoes and mosaics in a condition rarely found outside sites such as Pompei.

The Augustan-age poet Propertius is considered to have been born in what is now the city of Assisi.

In 238 AD Assisi was converted to Christianity by bishop Rufino, who was martyred at Costano. According to tradition, his remains rest in the Cathedral Church of San Rufino in Assisi.

The Ostrogoths of king Totila destroyed most of the town in 545. Assisi then came under the rule of the Lombards as part of the Lombard and then Frankish Duchy of Spoleto.

The thriving commune became an independent Ghibelline commune in the 11th century. Constantly struggling with the Guelph Perugia, it was during one of those battles, the battle at Collestrada, that Giovanni di Bernardone (better known as St. Francis of Assisi) was taken prisoner, setting in motion the events that eventually led him to live as a beggar, renounce the world and establish the Order of Friars Minor.

The city, which had remained within the confines of the Roman walls, began to expand outside these walls in the 13th century. In this period the city was under papal jurisdiction. The Rocca Maggiore, the imperial fortress on top of the hill above the city, which had been plundered by the people in 1189, was rebuilt in 1367 on orders of the papal legate, cardinal Gil de Albornoz.

In the beginning, Assisi fell under the rule of Perugia and later under several despots, such as the soldier of fortune Biordo Michelotti, Gian Galeazzo Visconti and his successor Francesco I Sforza, dukes of Milan, Jacopo Piccinino and Federico II da Montefeltro, lord of Urbino. The city went into a deep decline through the plague of the Black Death in 1348.

The city came again under papal jurisdiction under the rule of Pope Pius II (1458–1464).

In 1569 construction was started of the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli. During the Renaissance and in later centuries, the city continued to develop peacefully, as the 17th-century palazzi of the Bernabei and Giacobetti attest.

Now the site of many a pilgrimage, Assisi is linked in legend with its native son, St. Francis. The gentle saint founded the Franciscan order and shares honours with St. Catherine of Siena as the patron saint of Italy. He is remembered by many, even non-Christians, as a lover of nature (his preaching to an audience of birds is one of the legends of his life).

During World War II Assisi was occupied by Nazi Germany in September 1943. To save Jews in Italy the Catholic Church started the Assisi Network and hid Jews in the city. As the Allies moved up Italy, Germany declared Assisi an open city and pulled out, turning the city over to Italian partisans. The 12th Royal Lancers (Prince of Wales) entered the city on 17 June 1944. Colonel Valentin Müller, a German medical officer and a Catholic, was able to make Assisi a German hospital city for German troops in Italy in the summer of 1944, helping save Assisi from destruction, unlike Cassino.

Assisi was hit by two devastating earthquakes that shook Umbria in September 1997. But although much remains to be done, the recovery and restoration have been remarkable. Massive damage was caused to many historical sites, but the major attraction, the Basilica di San Francesco, reopened less than two years later.

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