Following Michelangelo: Spoleto and Assisi (7/11/1983)

Monday, July 11, 1983

We had breakfast as the place opened at 7:00, and checked out of the YMCA. We expected the bill to be 53,000 ITL/$34.50 per night, but it came to about 39,000 ITL/$25.35 per night. A pleasant surprise!

YMCA bill

We hurried to the train station to catch the 8:17 train towards Ancona, using our First Class train passes. At about 9:30, we got off at Spoleto, a town in hilly country north of Roma. First we found the baggage check area, and determining it was always open, we checked our bags.

Just outside the train station was a huge modern sculpture leftover from an earlier Festival dei Due Mondi/Festival of Two Worlds founded by composer Gian Carlo Menotti. It is an arts festival held annually, in conjunction with Spoleto USA held in Charleston, SC. Since Marsha used to live in Charleston, and has attended the Spoleto Festival there, she was interested in seeing the real Spoleto. There were posters all over town, and this year’s festival ended just yesterday!

We made our first stop at a post office. I had to wait a long time for service, and bought 40 stamps for the U.S. and 10 for Switzerland, plus one for Israel and one for Korea. The girl just handed me a bunch of stamps and charged 36,000 ITL/$23. Later when I sorted out the stamps, I found we were overcharged about 200 ITL/13 cents per stamp. My own fault for not checking the stamps in front of the clerk.

We crossed the river and entered the town through a gate. You could see the papal castle up on the hill behind the town. We passed the church of San Gregorio in Piazza Garibaldi, and then headed straight for the Duomo/Cathedral, passing the Roman amphitheater which was hidden behind buildings. We ended up having to climb a long flight of stairs. Since Marsha loves the heat, I thought I would be prostrated before she was. But I guess climbing stairs in the heat is different than lying in the sun! We finally made it to the Piazza del Duomo, with the cathedral at one end, and a monumental stairway at the other end.

Piazza del Duomo

The square was made of pink brick, dirty now and with jumbles of wooden chairs and stage parts. To the left of the cathedral is a plain brick wall in which the ashes of an American conductor, Tommy Schippers, are buried. Beyond the wall were palazzo and hanging gardens.

The Renaissance façade of the Spoleto Duomo had a rose window framed by symbols of the Evangelists, with seven smaller rose windows, and above there was a mosaic. The bell tower was made from stones of Roman ruins. Inside, the first chapel on the right had frescoes by Pinturicchio. In the right transept was Annibale Caracci’s Madonna and Saints. In the left transept was a tomb of Fra Filippo Lippi, designed by his son. There was a bust of Lippi in a medallion as he was as a monk before he was defrocked. Fra Filippo’s last works was the fresco in the apse, depicting the Annunciation, Nativity, Death, and Coronation of Mary. There were portraits of the painter and his assistants, and a son on the right in the scene of the death.

We walked up the monumental stairway to the Piazza del Mercato, which was not a bustling market, but a crowded parking lot! We wandered down a neat narrow streets, ending up in Via Salara Vecchia, and passed through Porta Fuga to Corso Garibaldi, going under arches and seeing neat old shops.

Narrow street

We returned to the train station to retrieve our bags for 800 ITL/50 cents each, and went to catch the 12:10 train towards Terontola, which was a half hour late. Fortunately, this train stopped at Assisi, where we arrived at about 13:30. First we looked for a place to check bags, but it was closed. I asked at the ticket window, and was told to ring the bell. So we went and rang the bell, and the ticket man came in answer! Oh, boy!

We went to buy bus tickets to go up to the pink town on the hill. Marsha was disgusted that we were going to another hill town, but at least this time we could ride a bus up!

Assisi bus ticket

We got off at the church of Santa Chiara/St Clare with its view over the Umbrian countryside.

View of Assisi

It was built on the site where St Francis of Assisi was educated. The church was closed, so we walked past souvenir shops up to Piazza del Comune/Town Square. There was a fountain at one end. To one side was the Romanesque Palazzo del Comune/Town Hall, and across from that was the former Temple of Minerva (now the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva) with a compressed front, the steps continued up through the columns).

Temple of Minerva

We took a peek inside the relatively tiny church.

We continued along Via Portica, bearing right on Via Arnaldo Fortini that became Via San Francesco. We stopped for ice cream at a place advertising 30 flavors. Via San Francesco went downhill and we arrived at the huge Basilica di San Francesco/St Francis. We entered the Gothic upper basilica that was undergoing restoration.

Basilica di San Francesco upper basilica

The walls of the nave are filled with 28 scenes from the life of St Francis as seen counter-clockwise from the transept. Giotto di Bondone did all but the last four. In the apse and transept are damaged Cimabue school frescoes, and Cimabue himself did the Crucifixion on the right wall of the right transept. There were stained glass windows in the apse.

We took the stairs to look in the cloister and go in the gift shop.

Basilica di San Francesco cloister

Then more stairs down into the remarkable lower basilica.

Basilica di San Francesco showing lower basilica

The transept we entered had frescoes of the life of Christ. On the right was Cimabue’s Madonna with Angels and St Francis, and beneath that were portraits of five saints by Simone Martini. The vaulting over the high altar had Giotto’s fresco of The Triumph of St Francis and His Virtues. Towards the nave was the Marriage with Poverty, on the left was Chastity in Her Tower, and to the right was Obedience Laying a Yoke on St Francis. I could not find the protruding marble capital that once fell on a woman’s head and cured her of migraines!

In the south transept were frescoes of the Passion, on the ceiling by his school, and on the walls by Lorenzetti himself. We noted the detail in the Last Supper with servants scraping the plates, and saw the sad Virgin and Child between St Francis and St John the Evangelist. The balcony-like pulpit had a fresco of the Coronation of Mary by a Giotto pupil. The nave was frescoed, paralleling the lives of St Francis on the left and Christ on the right. The first chapel on the left has frescoes by Martini of the life of St Martin, showing the saint giving his cloak to a beggar, being knighted, and his death and funeral.

We went down to the crypt to see the tomb of St Francis, which has been exposed in the underground chapel. Back up in the lower basilica, we saw a Gothic memorial, then a gallery, then a tomb of Philip I Emperor of Constantinople. At the far end was the chapel of St Catherine with frescoes and stained glass. Through the chapel of St Anthony the Abbot to the right, we entered the charming and quiet cloister of the dead with many tombstones. We walked out to the piazza surrounded by a low arcade to which horses were once tied. The lower basilica was Romanesque, but with a classic portico and Gothic doors.

We made our way down to Piazzale Porta San Pietro to wait for the bus, taking it past the train station to the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli. It was built on a plain where the companions of St Francis built huts around a tiny chapel. The huts were arranged in such a way as to create the side chapels of the church. Inside the church, under the dome, looking like a fairy tale little building in the vast space of the basilica, was the Porziuncola, that tiny chapel where St Francis declared his vocation and St Clare declared hers. We followed signs to the Roseto, the rosebush into which St Francis threw himself in ecstasy. The leaves turned reddish from his blood, and then all the thorns fell off. We saw the scrawny little thornless and bloomless bushes (Rosa canina assisiensis/Dog Rose). The signs took us to a chapel to show where St Francis spent his nights, and to another chapel of tears in remembrance of St Francis crying whenever he thought of the Passion. We returned to the church and to the right side of the chancel was the Transito Chapel, which was the infirmary where St Francis died.

We returned to the train station for the 16:30 train to Firenze/Florence. I thought the trip would only take a couple hours, but the train was late. There was talk of a strike, and the trains in every station were blowing their whistles like crazy. We thought we had arrived in Firenze, but found we were only halfway. We finally arrived about 20:00 and Marsha was able to lead us directly to the Hotel Paris on Via dei Banchi, taking us first through the underground concourse. We checked in and were given room 21 on the busy street side. But not as noisy as Roma considering we were three floors closer to the ground there. The room had double wooden doors, and a little staircase leading to a high window. The ceiling was very high. Marsha had a beer from the mini refrigerator as we freshened up. Out in the halls there were oriental rugs, chandeliers, some frescoed ceilings, and a stained glass skylight. We went to a restaurant around the corner that Marsha had been to with her parents, Giglio Rosso (Via dei Panzani 35). We had our usual mineral water, and shared a prosciutto and melon dish, and a pasta e fagiole soup. I had risotto and Marsha had rigatoni. The bill came to 17,808 ITL/$11.50.

Giglio Rosso dinner bill

After dinner we walked to the Duomo and down to Piazza della Signoria, and finally down to the old bridge to find the Gilli ice cream shop was closed. Back to the hotel and to bed.