Assisi

An hour's drive to the east takes us to the neighboring state of Umbria, famous for the town of Assisi and its beloved Saint Francis, who had a huge impact on the medieval church. The story of medieval Europe is the story of hard lives and a very religious world where people struggled and stressed about their relationship with God. Many thoughtful people entered monasteries and lived lives of quiet prayer and solitude in retreats like this. Around the year 1200, Francis, a simple friar from Assisi, was one such person. He retreated to this hermitage for the solitude, and it survives to this day with a handful of Franciscan friars living out his mission. Behind a little chapel, you'll find the tiny, dank cell where Francis himself would retire for private prayer. In this beautiful setting, you can almost imagine the much-loved saint preaching to the birds. Francis lived in the hill town of Assisi, while the Basilica of Saint Francis, where he's buried, dominates the town. We'll visit that later. His story starts here, in the valley below, in the Church of Saint Mary of the Angels. It's a grandiose Baroque church, but stepping inside, you realize it's built around a humble little chapel. As a young man, Francis was living in a way that attracted followers. He went to the Vatican in Rome, asked for the pope's blessing to continue his work, and got it. Back in Assisi, he was given this fixer-upper chapel. This is the actual chapel that Francis and his first followers rebuilt, and it was here, in 1209, that he established the Franciscan Order. Inside the chapel, pilgrims remember the very spot where Francis lived, worked, and died, and how, as it turned out, fixing up that little chapel was a metaphor for a church in need of reform. This chapel, so dwarfed by this enormous church, reflects the monumental impact this simple friar, a reformer well ahead of his time, had on Christendom. With his teaching, Francis challenged the decadence of church government. He took Jesus' message of non-materialism and simplicity seriously, challenging the wealthy and powerful around him. His slow-down-and-smell-God's-roses teaching drew a huge following. Francis drove to be Christlike. He taught by example. He lived without worldly goods and loved all of creation. A huge religious order grew out of his teachings, which were gradually embraced by the church. In 1939, Italy made Francis one of its patron saints, and in 2013, the newly elected pope took his name, the first ever Pope Francis.