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History and Culture
Of Umbrian origins, the settlement
became a Roman municipium under the name
of Asisium. Until the 13th century the
extension of the town coincided with the
Roman one. Bishop Rufinus evangelised
the inhabitants in 238 A.D. Taken by
Totila in 545, it then became part of
the Longobard and Frankish Duchy of
Spoleto. In the 11th century a free
commune is constituted: being of
Ghibelline faith it always lived in
opposition to the Guelfish Perugia. In
1198, taking advantage from the absence
of the imperial vicar, Conrad von Lutzen,
the inhabitants of Assisi attacked his
fortress.
As Perugia tried to interfere with the
liberation struggle of Assisi, the
latter marched against Perugia and was
beaten in a battle at Ponte San
Giovanni. Among the prisoners taken by
Perugia was a certain 22-years-old
Giovanni di Bernardone, called
Francesco. He was born in the winter
between 1181 and 1182 as the child of a
wealthy textile tradesman, Pietro di
Bernardone, whose family came from
Lucca, and his Provençal wife Pica.
After the captivity in Perugia,
Francesco decided to make a reputation
for knighthood participating in the
crusade of Walter de Brienne, but an
illness forced him to renounce already
at Spoleto. In the meantime, in Assisi
in 1197 was christened the future
emperor Frederick II, three years after
his birth on the market square of Jesi (near
Ancona). Francesco decided to change his
life, renouncing to the riches and the
eases of his family fortune and praying
at San Damiano had the vision which
ordered him to restore the Church
(1205).
In 1208, Francesco who had in the
meantime received as a gift from the
Benedictines the chapel of S. Maria
degli Angeli, called as well the
Porziuncola, founded his order of the
Grey-Friars. After his encounter with
Chiara di Favarone di Offreduccio,
daughter of a noble Assisi family, in
1212 he founded for her a second order,
the Clarisse's. Finally, in 1221 he
founded in Cannara the Third Order (a
lay-order). In 1224 he recieved at La
Verna the stigmata and in 1226 expired
at the Porziuncola. Only two years later
he was proclaimed saint and the day
after Pope Gregory IX laid the
foundation stone of the church and the
convent planned by Brother Elias, a
companion of the Saint. Also St. Clare
was canonised two years after her death
of 1253 and a year later begun the
construction of the curch in her honour.
Notwithstanding the presence of these
two eminent religious figures the future
history of Assisi did not show many
traces of it. In 1316 it enlargened its
town-walls, incorporating the convent
and church of St. Francis, the
Benedictine convent of S. Peter and the
town quarter Borgo Aretino. The decline
of Assisi begun after the black death in
1348. In order to assure the Pontifical
dominion over Assisi, Cardinal Aegidius
Albornoz erected in 1367 the Rocca
Maggiore on top of the ruins of the
former imperial fortress.
Since the 14th century and until the
16th century the two major Assisi
families, the Nepis (of the upper
town=Parte de Sopra) and the Fiumi (of
the lower town=Parte de Sotto) continued
to fight each other bitterly, although
the town was dominated for long periods
by several seignories (Biordo Michelotti,
Broglio di Trinci, Galeazzo Visconti,
Braccio Fortebraccio, Francesco Sforza,
Jacopo Piccinino). |
