Basilica di Santa Chiara

Beneath Assisi's Rocca, the church of horizontal white-and-pink stone bands holds two treasures of Franciscan history: the body of Saint Clare in a deep crypt, and the painted crucifix from San Damiano that, by tradition, spoke to Saint Francis and set his conversion in motion.

Why it matters

Santa Chiara is the great female counterpart to the Basilica of San Francesco, and it tells the story of Clare of Assisi in her own city. Built from 1257, four years after her death, and consecrated in 1265, the basilica was raised beside the church of San Giorgio, where both Francis (in 1226) and Clare herself (in 1253) had first been buried. Today it functions as the heart of the Poor Clares' memory: the Protomonastero community that descends from Clare's foundation still centres its life on this building, and pilgrims come from every continent to stand at her tomb. UNESCO includes the basilica among the Franciscan sites of Assisi inscribed on the World Heritage List in 2000.

What to notice

Look at the facade before you go inside: alternating courses of white and pink limestone cut from Monte Subasio run in strict bands across a broad gable, a design that became one of the signatures of Assisi. Inside, the space is a single austere room — the contrast with the painted basilica of San Francesco is deliberate, echoing Clare's ideal of poverty. On the right, a chapel preserves the San Damiano crucifix, the twelfth-century painted cross under which Francis prayed; what hangs here is the original, while San Damiano displays a copy. A stairway beside the high altar leads down to the crypt, where Clare's remains rest in a glass urn beneath the altar above, and the walls carry early fresco fragments recovered from San Damiano and the demolished San Giorgio.

Context and history

Clare was born into Assisi's aristocracy around 1194, heard Francis preach in the cathedral, and fled her family in 1212 to join him at San Damiano, where her community of Poor Ladies lived until 1260. After her death on 11 August 1253, and her rapid canonisation in 1255, the city moved her community and relics inside the walls: work on the new basilica began in 1257 over the church of San Giorgio, and the building was consecrated in 1265. The translation of Clare's body here in 1260 effectively made the basilica the second great shrine of Assisi. Her crucifix from San Damiano came with the community, which is why the object that anchored Francis's conversion ended up displayed in a church he never saw finished.