Santuario di Santa Maria di Rivotorto

On the plain below Assisi stands a shrine built around one fragile thing: the stone hut where Francis of Assisi and his first companions are traditionally said to have lived in prayer and poverty. Rebuilt in neo-Gothic style after an earthquake nearly destroyed its church, the sanctuary keeps the Sacro Tugurio at the centre of its nave.

Why it matters

Rivotorto marks an early chapter of the Franciscan story. Around 1208, Francis settled with his first followers, Bernardo da Quintavalle and Pietro Cattani, in a farmer's hut. According to tradition, he left from here for Rome in 1209 to seek approval for his way of life, and the site is associated with the first draft of the Franciscan Rule. The inscription over the portal reads “Hic primordia Fratrum Minorum”—here the beginnings of the Friars Minor. The sanctuary protects the Sacro Tugurio, a three-room stone structure whose middle room is a chapel. The present complex was rebuilt after the earthquake of 1853–54.

What to notice

The facade is built in pink Subasio stone and bears the coats of arms of the Basilica of San Francesco, on which the sanctuary depends. A 1955 mosaic in the tympanum depicts the vision of the chariot of fire and the passage of Emperor Otto IV. Inside, three aisles divided by polygonal piers lead to the Sacro Tugurio, restored in 1926 to its earlier form for the seventh centenary of Francis's death. Its three small rooms include a central chapel with a fifteenth-century altar mensa on an octagonal base, a cell with a wooden statue of Francis, and a kitchen room. Around the walls is a cycle of canvases painted around 1640 by Cesare Sermei; four of the original twelve were lost in the earthquake. The surviving scenes include the chariot of fire and the sending of a friar to Otto IV. A late-seventeenth-century Saint Michael Archangel by Gian Domenico Mattei hangs on the counter-facade.

Context and history

A first small chapel was commissioned in 1445 from Francesco Saccardo. Under Sixtus V, a larger church was begun in 1600 and took about forty years to complete; Sermei painted his cycle for its walls. The earthquake of 1853, dated to 1854 by some sources, left the church almost completely destroyed, while the Sacro Tugurio survived. The present sanctuary was designed in neo-Gothic style by fra' Bernardo Tini and built over the older rubble. Care of the complex belongs to the Friars Minor Conventual within the diocese of Assisi-Nocera Umbra-Gualdo Tadino.