The Story of Assisi Part 17

PALAZZO PUBBLICO OR PALAZZO COMMUNALE

In the beginning of the thirteenth century the civil affairs of a.s.sisi had a.s.sumed such large proportions that it was found impossible to transact business in unsheltered quarters of the piazza as had hitherto been done, and the citizens determined to build a Palazzo Pubblico. Other towns were rising to munic.i.p.al importance, notably Perugia whose palace for her priors proved a beautiful example of a gothic building, while a.s.sisi was directing all efforts to adorn her churches. A house was bought belonging to the same Benedictine abbot of Mount Subasio, who had given the humble dwellings to St. Francis, and on its site they erected the present munic.i.p.al palace, which was enlarged in 1275 and again in the fifteenth century, but it always remained a humble building with little pretensions to fine architecture. Here the priors and the consuls ruled the citizens in the absence of a despot, while in the palace of the Capitano del Popolo (now the residence of the Carabinieri), whose tower dates from 1276, the council of the citizens met to check the tyranny of the governing faction. These munic.i.p.al magnates lived upon opposite sides of the Piazza, and acted as a drag upon each other in civil matters.

The many small towns, villages and castles which were beneath the yoke of a.s.sisi in mediaeval times have been represented by a modern artist in the entrance hall of the Palazzo Pubblico, and are a happy record of her days of conquest and prosperity, which are duly remembered by the citizens. There is also a picture by Sermei of St. Francis blessing a.s.sisi from the plain which, painted in the sixteenth century, is interesting as a likeness of the town at that time. There is also a picture of Elias hung upon the wall, intended as a portrait and not as an object for popular devotion. An effort has been made to adapt one of the rooms as a gallery of Umbrian art, and a few frescoes taken from walls and convents and transferred to canvas are preserved here, giving some idea, notwithstanding their ruined condition, of the liberal way in which Umbrian artists distributed their work in every corner of the town. The gateway of S. Giacomo exposed to constant sun, wind and rain, was yet thought a fitting place for Fiorenzo di Lorenzo to paint a fresco of a beautiful Madonna. It now looks sadly out of place in this room of the Municipio with a little paper ticket on the corner of the canvas marking it as No. 17. The half figures of angels, No. 23 and No. 24, by Matteo da Gualdo, were taken from the Confraternity of S. Crispino together with No. 21. From the Chiesa dei Pellegrini came No. 5, the Madonna and Saints by Ottaviano Nelli of Gubbio; while No. 6, a Madonna, with angels holding a red damask curtain behind her, was found at the fountain of Mojano and is attributed to Tiberio d'a.s.sisi. That mysterious painter L'Ingegno d'a.s.sisi may be the author of No. 12. Vasari recounts how he learnt his art in the workshop of Perugino in company with Raphael, and even helped his master in the Cambio frescoes. His real name was Andrea Aloisi, the nickname of Ingegno arising from the fact that he was looked up to by his fellow citizens as a very remarkable man, for not only could he paint beautiful Madonnas but he was a distinguished Procurator, Arbitrator, Syndic and Camerlingo Apostolico. But to try and trace his work is like following a will-o'-the-wisp, for no sooner do we hear of a fres...o...b.. him than it eventually turns out to be by Fiorenzo di Lorenzo or by Adone Doni, and this fresco in the Municipio is the only one in a.s.sisi which may be by him. If it is, Tiberio d'a.s.sisi would seem to have been his master and not Perugino.

In the same room is a small but interesting painting in fresco (No.

87), the figure of a winged Mercury, which was excavated a few years ago in the Casa Rocchi, via Cristofani. In another room is the head of a saint which some believe to be also of Roman times, but a good authority attributes it to a late follower of Raphael. The saint's head is seen against a shadowy blue landscape, and like all Umbrian things has an indescribable charm, a feeling that the artist loved the valleys in spring-time, and tried to convey some of the soft colour of the young corn and budding trees into the picture he was painting.

THE CHIESA NUOVA

A little below the Piazza della Minerva is the Chiesa Nuova, built at the expense of Philip III, of Spain in 1615 by the a.s.sisan artist Giorgetti and finished in seven years. Few people come to a.s.sisi without visiting it, for although containing nothing of artistic value, it stands upon the site of the Casa Bernardone, and recalls many incidents of St. Francis' life. The small door is shown through which Madonna Pica pa.s.sed when the angel disguised as a pilgrim told her that her son was to be born in a stable, and we see part of the cell where St. Francis endured such cruel imprisonment from his father, until his mother in the absence of Messer Pietro let him out to return to his haunts at San Damiano and the Carceri.[106] Other places preserve more of the charm of the saint than the Chiesa Nuova.

Two buildings in the town are intimately connected with St. Francis, his father's shop in the Via Portica the entrance of which the sculptor of St. Bernardino's door at the franciscan convent has adorned with a beautiful pattern of flowers, s.h.i.+elds and cupids; and the house of Bernard of Quintavalle which is reached from this street by the Via S. Gregorio. It is now the Palazzo Sbaraglini and has no doubt been much enlarged since the thirteenth century, but the little old door above a flight of steps bears the unmistakable stamp of age; it leads into a long vaulted room, now a chapel, which there seems every reason to believe was the one where Bernard, the rich n.o.ble, invited St. Francis to stay with him at a time when he doubted his sanct.i.ty. The story is too long to quote and extracts would only spoil it, but the pilgrim to a.s.sisi should read it as related in that franciscan testament, the _Fioretti_ (chap. iii.). Popular devotion has happily not tampered with this corner of the town as it has with the house of the Bernardone.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CAMPANILE OF STA. MARIA MAGGIORE]

STA. MARIA MAGGIORE

This romanesque church stands above a Roman building whose columns and mosaic floor can easily be seen from the garden behind the apse, and for many centuries it was the cathedral of a.s.sisi as is testified by its close proximity to the Bishop's palace. But there is now little to remind us of any pretensions to splendour which it may once have possessed, only vestiges of the frescoes destroyed by the great earthquake of 1832 can be seen on its walls, and an Annunciation in a cupboard of the sacristy--in such strange places do we find an ancient fresco in a.s.sisi. The church was already an old building in the twelfth century, for we hear of its being restored and enlarged after a fire by Giovanni da Gubbio, and finished later by the help of St.

Francis who is said to have rebuilt the apse. One gladly hurries out of it into the little piazza which, though the humblest looking in a.s.sisi, is very famous for the scenes it has witnessed. Here St.

Francis renounced the world in the presence of his angry father, and received protection from Bishop Guido; (see p. 235). Many years later the dying saint was brought to rest at the Bishop's palace near the church, and edified those who guarded the gates by singing so gaily in the midst of terrible suffering. Then again when a quarrel arose between Guido and the Podesta of a.s.sisi, two friars came up with a message of peace from St. Francis, then on his deathbed at the Portiuncula, who had heard with grief of the dissension. The story, and it is a true one we may be sure, has been faithfully recorded by Brother Leo, who tells us how "when all were a.s.sembled together in the piazza by the Bishop's palace the two brethren rose up and said: "The blessed Francis in his illness has composed a canticle to the Lord concerning His creatures, to the praise of the Lord Himself and for the edification of the people." It was the verse beginning "Praised be my Lord for all those who pardon one another for His love's sake,"

which he had added to his Hymn to the Sun (see p. 79). All listened intently to the message which so touched the heart of the Podesta that he flung himself at the Bishop's feet and promised to make amends for his offence for the love of Christ and the Blessed Francis. The Bishop lifting him from the ground spoke words of forgiveness and peace, and then "with great kindness and love they embraced and kissed one another.""

[Ill.u.s.tration: EAST FRONT OF SAN FRANCESCO]

CONVENTS OF S. QUIRICO AND S. APPOLINARE

Every church and convent wall in a.s.sisi was once adorned by frescoes, and even now, when time and ill-usage have done their best to ruin them, it is still possible to come upon delightful specimens of Umbrian art. But they are so stowed away in out of the way corners that one hardly likes to pa.s.s a door, however poor and uninviting, without glancing in to see what treasure may be hidden away behind it.

Curiosity was amply rewarded one day while visiting the convent of S.

Quirico which we pa.s.s on the way from Sta. Maria Maggiore to S.

Pietro, attracted there by the small fresco of the Virgin and St. Anne by Matteo da Gualdo over the door. The whitewashed parlour contained nothing of interest, not even a nun peered through the iron grating, but a murmur from the attendant about frescoes drew us to a window where, above the brown-tiled roof under a rough pent ledge, exposed to rain and wind, was a fresco of Christ rising from the tomb, and four small angels. It is not perhaps one of Matteo da Gualdo's most pleasing compositions and might be pa.s.sed unnoticed in a gallery, but the thought of the wealth of Umbrian art, when masters left their paintings over gateways upon city walls, and above a roof where even the nuns can scarcely see it as they walk in the cloister below, give it a peculiarly a.s.sisan charm which we cannot easily forget. A few steps further on, down the Borgo San Pietro, is the large convent of S. Appolinare, remarkable for its pretty campanile of brick, and a wheel window above the door. It once possessed many frescoes of the fourteenth and fifteenth century, but now it is not worth while to seek admittance for they are much destroyed; some have been ruthlessly cut in two by lowering the ceiling of the rooms, and only here and there, where the whitewash has peeled off, faces of Madonnas and saints look out like ghosts imprisoned in a convent wall.

S. PIETRO

The church of S. Pietro stands upon a gra.s.s piazza surrounded by mulberry trees, with a broad outlook upon the valley. The central door, supported by two lions, has a twisted design of water-plants and birds which formerly were coloured, but now only show here and there traces of green stalks on a dark red background. A finely carved inscription above it records that in the year 1218 the cistercian Abbot Rustico built the facade, but its proud historians believe the church itself to have existed in the second century, thus claiming for it the honour of being the first church erected in a.s.sisi. The present building cannot be older than 1253 when it was rebuilt after a great fire, and consecrated by Innocent IV. The interior is finely proportioned, and the remains of ancient frescoes discovered upon the walls show the zeal of the a.s.sisans in making all their churches, as well as San Francesco, as beautiful as they could.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHURCH OF S. PIETRO]

In the small chapel to the left of the high altar are four stencilled medallions of a hunter with his dogs chasing a stag, besides symmetrical patterns like those of the nave of the Lower Church of San Francesco. Over the altar is a signed picture by Matteo da Gualdo (he was at a.s.sisi in 1458, but the date here is partly effaced), of a Madonna with a choir of angels, and upon either side St. Peter and the a.s.sisan martyr St. Vittorino. By standing on the altar steps a fresco of the Annunciation of the fifteenth century may be seen on the wall of the sacristy, discovered beneath the usual layer of whitewash some fifty years ago. The angel's profile, the hair turned back in waves from the face over the shoulders, is clearly outlined, and shows pale against the golden light of his wings. But the real treasures of this church, according to a pious author, are the bones of St. Vittorino, an a.s.sisan Christian who was the second Bishop of a.s.sisi, and died a martyr's death in the third century. In 1642 these relics were deposited in a more suitable marble urn than the one that had contained them before, during a grand ceremony presided over by a Baglioni, Bishop of Perugia. Other bones and ashes of some Roman martyrs were afterwards added which were taken from the cemetery at Rome by the Abbot of San Pietro "to further enrich his church."

THE CONFRATERNITIES

An enduring mark of St. Francis' influence is seen in the number of confraternities established in a.s.sisi which, if they have lost many of their primitive customs, still retain a hold upon the people and are the great feature of the town. Hardly a day pa.s.ses without seeing members either preparing for a service in one of their chapels, or following a church procession, or carrying the dead along the cypress walk from Porta S. Giacomo to the cemetery. Clothed in long grey hooded cloaks, holding lanterns and candles and singing their mediaeval hymns, these citizens of the nineteenth century belong to a.s.sisi of the past as much as all her frescoes and early buildings. Their origin goes back to the middle of the thirteenth century when, out of the great devotional movement due to St. Francis, arose that strange body of penitents the Flagellants, who are said to have first appeared in Perugia, and thence spread throughout Italy.[107] "The movement," says Dr Creighton, "pa.s.sed away; but it left its dress as a distinctive badge to the confraternities of mercy which are familiar to the traveller in the streets of many cities of Italy." a.s.sisi was among the first to witness the hordes of fanatics who roamed from town to town increasing as they pa.s.sed like a swarm of locusts through the land, and often at night going forth into the streets clothed in white garments to dance a dance of the dead, clanging bones together as they sang. It was inevitable that their pa.s.sage through a.s.sisi should have its results, and many brotherhoods were founded; those who had no chapels of their own met in S. Pietro or S. Maria delle Rose, where they performed their penances, sometimes, as in the case of the Battuti (Flagellants), beating themselves as they sang the wild, love-inspired hymns of Jacopone da Todi, the franciscan poet of Umbria. Since those days their fervour has taken a more practical form, and very simple are their services.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CONFRATERNITY OF SAN FRANCESCUCCIO IN VIA GARIBALDI]

The members of _San Francescuccio_, or _Delle Stimate_, ever to and fro upon some errand of mercy, belong to the most important confraternity, and own one of the most picturesque chapels in the towns. When its doors are open during early Ma.s.s or Benediction the sound of prayer and chanting comes across the quiet road, and in the blaze of candle-light is seen the great Crucifixion of Ottaviano Nelli (?) in the lunette of the wall above the altar. At other times, the chapel being so sunk below the level of the road with no windows to light it, both fresco and the charming groined roof, blue as that of San Francesco, can with difficulty be seen. The pent roof outside overshadows some Umbrian frescoes by Matteo da Gualdo recording the famous miracle of the roses which flowered for St. Francis in the snow, and which he offered to the Virgin at the Altar of the Portiuncula. On the wall to the right are some ruined frescoes in terra-verde by a scholar of Matteo.

Another confraternity in this street is _San Crispino_, which once possessed a picture by Niccol Alunno, but that has long since disappeared, and only faint patches of colour remain above its gateway. There are many other confraternities, but as they do not all possess pictures of interest, we only mention three others; and first of these, the _Oratory of St. Anthony the Abbot_, or _Chiesa dei Pellegrini_, which every visitor to a.s.sisi ought to visit.[108] After the Church of San Francesco it is by far the most important sight of the town; a Lombard facade, a Roman temple, or a mediaeval castle, delightful and beautiful as they are, may be seen elsewhere, but we know nothing with such individual charm as the little chapel of St.

Anthony, in the Via Superba. So often a hundred vicissitudes arrested the adornment of a building during those troubled times of the middle ages, but here we find a small and perfectly proportioned oratory decorated with frescoes upon the ceiling and upon every wall, by two Umbrian masters who have sought to make it a complete and perfect sanctuary of Umbrian art.

Built in 1431 by the piety of the brotherhood of St. Anthony the Abbot, it served as a private chapel to the adjoining hospital, where pilgrims coming to pray at the shrine of St. Francis found food and shelter for three days. The liberal donations given by Guidantonio, Duke of Urbino and sometime Lord of a.s.sisi, whose devotion to the saint was great, may have enabled the confraternity to adorn it with its many frescoes. Outside, in the arched niche above the door, are the patrons of the chapel, St. Anthony and St. James of Campostello, that great saint of pilgrims, with a frieze of small angels above them playing upon various instruments, also by Matteo da Gualdo. To him we owe the fair Madonna over the altar who gazes so dreamily before her, and sits so straight upon her throne. Angels gather round bending towards their instruments with earnest faces; Matteo's angels can never only calmly pray, they must sing or else play on tambourines, viole d'amore, cymbals and organs. Less pleasing are the large figures of St. James and St. Anthony, while in contrast to them are the slender winged figures on either side bearing tall candelabra, and moving forward with such stately step, their white garments sweeping in long folds behind them, their fair curls just ruffled by the air.

Surely Matteo must have been thinking of a group of babies at play in the cornfields, or under the hedges near his own Umbrian town, when he painted that frieze of laughing children, with little caps fitting so closely round their heads, who are tossing the branches of red and white roses up into the air. Each one is different, and all are full of graceful movement. They divide the frescoes below from that of the Annunciation, which recalls the manner of Boccatis da Camerino, the master of Matteo. He paints a swallow, the bird of returning spring, perched outside the Virgin's bedroom, to symbolise the promise of redemption, and a lion cub meant to represent the lion of Judah walks leisurely towards the Madonna.

Matteo da Gualdo, as the inscription tells, worked here in 1468, and Pier Antonio da Foligno, known as Mezzastris, came in 1482 to paint the rest of the chapel, and upon the right wall he related the most famous of St. James' miracles in a nave and delightful manner. The legends tell how in the time of Pope Calixtus II, a certain German with his wife and son on their way to the saint's Spanish shrine of Campostello lodged at Tolosa, where their host's daughter fell in love with the fair young German. But he, being a cautious youth, resisted every advance of the Spanish maiden, who sought to avenge herself by hiding a silver drinking cup belonging to her father in his wallet.

The theft was discovered, and the judge of Tolosa condemned the young pilgrim to be hanged. Pier Antonio has painted the scene when the father and mother, after visiting Campostello, return to take a last look at the place where their son was executed and find him well: "O my mother! O my father!" he says, "do not lament for me, as I have never been in better cheer, the blessed Apostle James is at my side, sustaining me and filling me with celestial joy and comfort." In the fresco near the altar the story is continued; the judge, stout and imposing as one of Benozzo Gozzoli's Florentine merchants, is seated at a table in crimson and ermine robes surrounded by his friends, when the pilgrim and his wife arrive and beg him to release their son.

Somewhat bored at being interrupted at his banquet he mocks them, saying: "What meanest thou, good woman? Thou art beside thyself. If thy son lives so do these fowls before me." No sooner had he spoken than, to the astonishment of all, the c.o.c.k and hen stood up on the dish and the c.o.c.k began to crow, as we see in Mezzastris' fresco. On the opposite wall are miracles of St. Anthony. In the fresco near the door he is sitting in the porch of the church surrounded by his companion hermits; they are watching the arrival of camels which, in answer to the saint's prayer, have brought a supply of food neatly corded on their backs. The artist has pictured the desert with sandy mountains, little flowers growing in the burning sand and thick gra.s.s in the wood by the convent. In the second fresco St. Anthony, beneath a portico of lapis lazzuli and green serpentine, is distributing the food brought by the friendly camels, to the beggars, who appear as suddenly upon the scene as the beggars do in an a.s.sisan street.

The four figures in the ceiling, Pope Leo III, St. Bonaventure, St.

Isidor of Seville and St. Augustine, and the angels with s.h.i.+eld-shaped wings, are also by Mezzastris. A graceful piece of his work is the Christ above the door, in a glory of angels who form a wreath around Him with their wings like sheaves of yellow wheat. Delightful, but very different from Matteo's, are the cupid-angels flying across the sky on clouds, and the two seated playing with a s.h.i.+eld upon which is painted the pilgrim's scallop-sh.e.l.l.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MONTE FRUMENTARIO IN THE VIA PRINCIPE DI NAPOLI]

The figure of St. James near the door is of small interest, being a much restored work of a pupil of Perugino; but in the dark corner on the other side is, says Mr Berenson, a youthful work of Fiorenzo di Lorenzo. It is the young St. Ansano holding his lungs suspended daintily from one finger as in the fresco of S. Paolo, and looking so charming in his page's dress, his fair curls falling about his shoulders. He stands at the entrance of a cave with pointed rocks above, and saxifrage and ferns delicately drawn are growing in their crevices. Would that Mezzastris had given his pupil a larger s.p.a.ce of wall to work on, so that we might have had more saints and landscapes like these. We leave the chapel with regret, giving one last look at Matteo's Madonna and his frieze of child-angels, and then go out into the long broad Via Principe di Napole. Its fine palaces, once the abode of some of the richest n.o.bles of the town, have now been turned into schools and hospitals, and our thoughts once more revert to the past days of prosperity and magnificence as we walk along this grand but silent street where the gra.s.s grows unmolested between the stones.

A little way further on to the right is the fine _loggia_ of the _Monte Frumentario_ which in olden times was an agricultural Monte di Pieta, where the peasants who had no other possessions than the produce of the fields would come to p.a.w.n their grain in time of need.

The door is finely sculptured, and the delicate chiselling of the capitals of the pillars of the _loggia_ mark it as a work of the fourteenth century. Not far from the Chiesa dei Pellegrini, but to the left, stands one of the oldest a.s.sisan houses which does not seem to have suffered much alteration since it was built. It was the lodge of the Comacine guild of workers, who have left their sign of the rose between the compa.s.s over the entrance, and two pieces of sculpture, showing that those to whom the house belonged were people who worked at some trade. It does not appear to have been a dwelling-house, but only a place where the members of the guild, employed in building the different civil and religious buildings for the a.s.sisans, could meet together to discuss their interests, draw out their plans and execute different pieces of their work. They probably did not build the house, but perhaps in the year 1485, which is the date above the door, adapted for their use one already standing.[109] It is always pointed out as the _Casa di Metastasio_, but his paternal dwelling is a less interesting house, standing at the angle of Via S. Giacomo and Via S.

Croce, which can be reached from the Comacine Lodge by the steep by-street of S. Andrea. Metastasio, though the Trapa.s.si were a.s.sisans, had little to do with the town as his family were engaged in trade at Rome, where he was born in 1698. There he was found improvising songs to a crowd of wondering people by the celebrated Vincenzo Gravina, who adopted and educated him. When set to music, Metastasio's poetry brought all Rome to his feet and earned him the t.i.tle of Caesarean poet from the Emperor Charles VI; he ended his life at the court of Vienna as the favourite of Maria Theresa, honoured by all the great musicians of the day. Truly he has little to do with a.s.sisi, yet he must be added to the list of her numerous ill.u.s.trious citizens.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HOUSE OF THE COMACINE BUILDERS IN THE VIA PRINCIPE DI NAPOLE]

Following the street by the Casa di Metastasio, we get into delightful lanes above the town and reach another little confraternity, the oldest of all, _San Rufinuccio_.[110] Its small chapel, built of alternate layers of pink and white Subasian stone, is a very characteristic example of an Umbrian way-side sanctuary, always open in the olden days for the peasants to come into for rest and prayer. It is worth a visit, not only because the way there is beautiful, but also for the grand Crucifixion painted above the altar by the decorator of St. Nicholas' Chapel in San Francesco. It is a strong and splendid composition, which even much repainting has been unable to destroy. Unfortunately the scenes at the sides can only just be seen. Below, the half-length Madonna and angels by another artist recall the Annunciation of S. Pietro, in the marked outline of their pale faces and the rainbow colour of clothes and wings.

Turning off from the Via Nuova to the left we mount still higher through the olive groves along a path possessing no name, but which is the nicest way to the heights above the town. We come in a few minutes to the confraternity of _San Lorenzo_, standing somewhat below the level of the castle. It has nothing of interest inside, but behind the wooden covering of the gateway at the side is a fres...o...b.. an unknown Umbrian artist, an a.s.sisan perhaps, who above the Virgin's throne signs himself "Chola Pictor." He paints the faces of his saints with a smooth surface, betraying the influence of Simone Martini which he felt together with many of his fellow Umbrian artists. The Virgin's throne is full of wonderful ornaments; unfortunately the fresco has suffered from a large crack across the wall. Very quaint is a group of hooded members of the confraternity at her feet, and there is a charming figure of St. Rufino, young, with an oval face and brown eyes, but to be seen only from the top of a ladder as he is painted in a corner of the arch. It has been suggested to remove this much-ruined painting to the safer custody of the Municipio, but we hope this will not occur, for, taken away from its gateway on the hillside, where the redstarts build their nests and the evening sun lights up the colour in the Virgin's face, its interest and charm would be lost.

THE CASTLE OR "LA ROCCA D'a.s.sISI"

Within her city walls a.s.sisi possesses nothing wilder or more beautiful than the undulating slopes which rise from the city up to the Castle, where wild orchises grow among the gra.s.s, and the hedges of acacia wind around the hill. The town lies so directly below, that by stepping to the edge and looking across the white acacias, we can only see a ma.s.s of brown roofs all purple at sundown, the tops of towers and the battlements of gateways. Then there are places where the gra.s.sy hillocks stand up so high that they hide the town altogether, and we seem to be looking out upon the broad vista of the valley from an isolated peak. At all times it is beautiful; but choose a stormy day in springtime, when the clouds are driving upwards from the plain only lately covered with mist, and the nearer hills are dark their cities catching the late evening suns.h.i.+ne as it breaks through the storm, while wind-swept Subasio looks bleak in the white light showing here and there patches of palest green. And behind us, cresting the hill, so near the town yet seen absolutely alone and clear against the sky, rise the tower and the vast walls of the Rocca d'a.s.sisi, looking, not like a ruin crumbling beneath the constant driving of wind and rain, but as though torn down in war-time, grand in its destruction. It stands upon the site of an ancient burial ground, where in remote times the Umbrian augurs came to watch for omens from the heights of a tower that is said to have crowned the summit. The legend of this building gave rise to the belief that a castle stood here in very early times which was taken by Totila when he besieged a.s.sisi. But it is more probable that when Charlemagne rebuilt the town in 733 after it had been destroyed by his army, he also erected a castle to enable the Papal emissaries to keep the people in subjection; or perhaps the citizens themselves may have wished to protect themselves more securely from pa.s.sing armies (see p.

16). It ended by becoming, much to the displeasure of the people the residence of whoever held a.s.sisi for the time, and in the twelfth century they experienced the despotic rule of Conrad of Suabia, who lived here with his young charge, Frederic II. When, by the superior power of the Pope, Conrad was driven out of Umbria, the citizens did their best to destroy the walls which had harboured a tyrant, and to avoid further tyranny they obtained an edict forbidding the erection of another fortress. But promises such as these were vain indeed, for when, in 1367, escaping from the hated yoke of the Perugians a.s.sisi welcomed Cardinal Albornoz in the Pope's name as her ruler, she lent a willing ear to his plans for rebuilding the castle. The people were well satisfied as they watched the improvements he made in the town, and two centuries had so dimmed the remembrances of Conrad's tyranny, that they gladly a.s.sisted him, little deeming that they were giving away their liberty. Albornoz, not slow to perceive what a valuable possession it would prove to the rulers of a.s.sisi, spared neither money nor efforts to make it large and strong. By his orders the castle keep, which we see to this day, called the "maschio," and the squarely-set walls enclosing it were erected, and in a very few years the Rocca again rose proudly on its hill, warning the Umbrian people of its newly-found importance, and enticing pa.s.sing _condottieri_ to lay siege to a town that offered so fine a prize. Albornoz also rebuilt most of the city walls which had been so battered during the Perugian wars; we can trace them from gateway to gateway encircling the city, and it is curious to see how in the upper portion near San Rufino large open s.p.a.ces exist, as if in those active days when the a.s.sisans had hopes of becoming powerful, they purposely set the walls far back to provide for a large and flouris.h.i.+ng town. The feeling of arrested growth is one of the most mournful spectacles, and we half wonder if the great castle dominating the heights was not in part the cause of it. There was war enough at the time, inevitable among the restless factions of a people groping towards freedom and power, but here above the town was placed a fresh cause of dissension and struggle against perpetual bondage through varied tyrannies.

Albornoz, in planning out the city walls, discovered that the part between Porta Cappuccini and Porta Perlici, where the hill descends towards the ravine, needed protection, so he built the strong fortress of San Antonio known as the Rocca Minore. It had a separate governor or Castellano, and though of minor importance, proved very efficient in repelling the attacks of besieging armies. The princ.i.p.al tower, though somewhat ruined, still looks very fine within its square enclosure of ma.s.sive walls, now covered in places with heavy curtains of ivy, the home of countless birds. A pious Castellano in the fifteenth century left a fresco of the Crucifixion in the chapel with his portrait at the foot of the Cross, and as we look at it through the wooden gateway we are reminded of what otherwise from the deserted look of the place it is easy to forget, that people once lived and prayed at the Rocca as well as fought.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LOOKING ACROSS THE a.s.sISAN ROOFS TOWARDS THE EAST]

Cardinal Albornoz left the castle in charge of two a.s.sisan captains, but from 1376 an uninterrupted line of governors received their salaries from whoever was master of a.s.sisi at the time. Always chosen from other towns their privileges were quite distinct from those of the civil governors; but in the fifteenth century, owing to the weakness of the Priors, who failed to keep order among the lawless n.o.bles of the town, their power increased. The Papal Legate then gave into the hands of the Castellano authority to issue edicts which the Priors had to obey, and in 1515 he was invested with the t.i.tle of Podesta and Pretor of a.s.sisi. But none of these governors seems to have misused their power over the town, probably because their rule was of too short a duration to carry out any ambitious scheme. And when the despot for the time being of a.s.sisi came to stay, he took up his quarters in the castle, ruling governors, magistrates and people alike. In the time of the despot Broglia di Trino, we hear of the Priors wearily toiling up the steep ascent to place before him the acts they had pa.s.sed in the munic.i.p.al palace. He received them always in the open air, holding his councils either in the first enclosure by the well, or in the second by the castle keep, where many important conclusions were arrived at, and plans for the city's dominion laid out.

So perfect is the harmony of the castle from wherever it is seen, that it is difficult to realise how many hands have formed it, how many times its walls have been battered down and rebuilt at different periods by popes, cardinals, and pa.s.sing _condottieri_, who have nearly all left their arms upon its walls as a record of their munificence. After Albornoz had built the princ.i.p.al ma.s.s of fortifications little was done until 1458, when Jacopo Piccinino, the son of the great general, entered a.s.sisi as master, and obtained immediate possession of the Rocca. His reign was short, but with the quick eye of a soldier he soon discovered the weakness of the western slope, and seeing that it might be carried by a.s.sault from Porta San Giacomo, he laid the foundations of a polygonal tower and a long wall connecting it with the main building. The Comacine builders established in a.s.sisi were employed and left their sign, the rose between the compa.s.s and the mason's square, upon its lower walls. But long before the work was half completed Piccinino sold the city to the Pope, and it was aeneas Piccolomini, Pius II, who, when he visited a.s.sisi in 1459, ordered it to be brought to a termination; within a year the wall was raised to its full height, the tower received its battlements and the arms of the Piccolomini were placed above those of Piccinino. The covered gallery, running along the top of the wall from the castle, still leads the visitor to the giddy heights of the tower whence he obtains truly a bird's-eye view of all the country round, from Spoleto to Perugia, across range upon range of hills towards Tuscany, and from Bettona to the wild tract of mountainous country leading to Nocera, Gualdo and Gubbio.

To recount the full history of the castle needs a book to itself, and would include not only the history of a.s.sisi but almost of all Umbria.[111] The possession of the Rocco Maggiore entailed that of the Rocca Minore and gave undisputed sway over a.s.sisi, so that the desperate efforts made to hold it can be understood. During the intervals when Papal authority was relaxed, we find the names of many famous people whose armies fought for this much contested prize.

Biordo Michelotti, Count Guido of Montefeltro, the two Piccininos, Francesco Sforza and Gian Galeazzo Visconti, were in succession its owners. Cosmo de' Medici obtained it from Pope Eugenius IV, in payment of a bad debt, and a Florentine governor ruled over it for a year. It even, together with the town of a.s.sisi, became the property of Lucrezia Borgia, who received it from Alexander VI, as part of her dower on her marriage with Giovanni Sforza, Lord of Pesaro. Sometimes it happened that a private citizen of Perugia conceived the ambitious scheme of making himself master of the castle, and by fraud the Castellano would be enticed outside the gates and murdered with his family. But it always ended by Perugia, fearing the wrath of the Pope, or not liking one of their own citizens to gain so much power, sending an army to dislodge the tyrant, who soon lost his head. Sometimes criminals were kept imprisoned in the castle; we can still see the room in the keep where they scratched their names upon the wall, with many references to their horror of the place, and a roughly traced heart pierced with an arrow. Ordinary malefactors were shut up in a dark cell on the stairs. When their crimes merited death they were executed on the Piazza della Minerva, or if time pressed, the Castellano hanged them from the battlements of the fortress or threw them out of a window into the ravine below. The governors had a difficult and not a very peaceful time, for they had not only to guard against outside foes, but occasionally against a faction who attempted to get possession of the castle, and great on those occasions was the fight outside its walls. It was in vain that they took every precaution for the general safety, that a night guard walked up and down the a.s.sisan streets playing his castanets to warn off all evil-doers, or that men-at-arms watched incessantly from the castle battlements. In the sixteenth century the castle became a prey to the rival families of the Nepis and the Fiumi who divided a.s.sisi between them. First it fell into the hands of Jacopo Fiumi and the Pope, Alexander VI, furious when he heard of this citizen's audacious act, wrote that "by love or by force" he would have his fortress back again; but Jacopo remained impervious to threats or promises and held out for another year, until the Priors fearing the anger of the Pope came to an agreement with him. Some thirty years later the Nepis obtained possession of it by treachery and violence, and it required all the astuteness of Malatesta Baglione, who was fighting for Clement VII, to dislodge them, while the Pope branded them and their adherents as "sons of iniquity" for having dared to wrest from the Papacy the castle of a.s.sisi.

[Ill.u.s.tration: VIEW OF SAN FRANCESCO FROM BENEATH THE CASTLE WALLS]