Chiesa e Convento di San Damiano

Downhill from Assisi, among olive terraces, stands the church where the Franciscan story effectively begins: here a painted crucifix is said to have spoken to Francis, here he rebuilt the walls with his own hands, and here Clare lived her religious life until her death in 1253.

Why it matters

San Damiano is where the Franciscan and Clarissan narratives intersect in a single compound. The church itself is ancient — raised between the eighth and ninth centuries in honour of the physician saint Damian — and by 1030 it served as an important Benedictine priory before falling into neglect. Around the start of the thirteenth century Francis restored the ruined building, and in 1212 he gave it to Clare and her first companions; the Poor Clares stayed until 1260, and Clare died here on 11 August 1253. Francis is also traditionally credited with composing the Cantico delle Creature in this garden-like setting. The ensemble belongs to the serial UNESCO World Heritage property of Assisi's Franciscan sites, inscribed in 2000, and has long been associated with the Friars Minor.

What to notice

The single-nave church is deliberately plain, its facade fronted by a broad portico. Over the main altar hangs a copy of the crucifix; the twelfth-century original is preserved in the Basilica di Santa Chiara in Assisi. A fresco by an anonymous fourteenth-century painter shows Francis casting restoration money out of the window when it was offered on the wrong terms. Under the portico, the chapel of San Girolamo carries frescoes by Tiberio d'Assisi dated 1517. In the apse, fourteenth-century Umbrian frescoes of Saint Damian, Saint Rufino and the Madonna and Child stand above the 1504 wooden choir. In the convent, a simple cross marks the dormitory where Clare died. A stairway leads to the infirmary oratory where she spent her last years, its walls painted with scenes of the Passion.

Context and history

The compound has changed hands across eight centuries. After the Poor Clares moved inside Assisi's walls in 1260, the buildings passed to male religious and eventually to the Friars Minor, who have kept the sanctuary since the thirteenth century. Following the suppression of religious houses in 1860, the state seized the property, and the Comune di Assisi sold it in 1879 to Lord G. F. S. Robinson, Marquess of Ripon; it then passed through the Kerr family until Lord Peter Kerr, Marquess of Lothian, returned it to the Order of Friars Minor by deed in 1983, on condition that the site remain a place of prayer and silence. The convent forms part of the institutional history of Umbria's Seraphic Province.