Wednesday, 18 October, Assisi and a wine tasting, Posta Donini

Written 14 February 2024

Breakfast was served in the conservatory. On our way here on the bus, Anna had spoken enthusiastically of this breakfast, emphasizing that they supplied "large, American-style coffee mugs!"

The buffee included this assortment of cheeses and cold cuts (left) as well as breakfast pastries and whole fruit (right). To the right of the cold cuts, you can see a couple of the dishes of fresh vegetables. Out of sight around the corner to the left of the fruits are the assortment of fruit juices, pitcher of milk, and bottles of still and sparkling water.

Chocolate-hazelnut spread and three flavors of jam were neatly dispensed from large jars. The covered glass dishes to the left hold two kinds of cookies and little crisp cookie cups into which to dispense jam.

Domed glass cake plates held a couple of fruit tarts and chocolate, apple, and carrot cakes.

Nearby, of course, were butter, several cereals, yogurt, and assored sprinkles to put on them. Also a large dish of prunes and a bag of whole walnuts, in the shell (cracker supplied). This was the second place were walnuts were labeled "dried fruit." I suspect this is just an inherent difficulty of translation between Italian and English. Nuts seem to be "dry fruit" (frutta secca)—fruit from trees that isn't fleshy—but that gets translated into English as "dried fruit." Every breakfast buffet we visited featured walnuts prominently, and I wonder whether that's because Europeans hear that American's like dried fruit (meaning raisins, prunes, dates, apricots, etc.) for breakfast and take it to mean that we want walnuts.

They do supply coffee (and the promised large mugs, visible in the right-hand photo), but again, tea seems especially favored. The teabags are readily available, so that you can deploy them in the cup before adding genuinely hot water from this fine silver samovar. Both milk and lemon supplied.

Chafing dishes contained scrambled eggs and bacon, the latter closer to American style than most, but still leaner and less crisp. European cooks just can't quite believe that Americans consider the crispy fat (and not the lean streaks) to be the point of bacon.

In the broad hallway near the conservatory door was an assortment of stunningly good watercolors of flowers, painted by the lady of the house. My favorite was the pansies shown here (at the top), which looked not only real enough to smell but good enough to eat!

Outside I got this shot of an old well in the courtyard, looking back toward the building where we stayed.

Then we piled back onto the bus to visit Assisi, the home of St. Francis, just half an hour away.

At the left here is the church of St. Mary of the Angels, which we passed on the way, decorated when we were there by scaffolding on the dome and a tower crane. It marks the spot where St. Francis lived for a time.

At the right is a rather blurry shot of the walled town of Assisi, perched on its plateau on the shoulders of Mount Subasio.

At the left here is the drop-off point where the bus had to leave us. From there, we had a long, switchbacked climb to the double-decker basilica and convent at the top of the hill.

At the right is a map of the city, with a "you are here" arrow pointing out the drop-off point.

The basilica's convent is the mother house and world headquarters of the Franciscan order.

Even from our starting point, only part way up the plateau, the views over the Umbrian countryside were sweeping and beautiful.

And the view of the layers of arches needed to hold up the church was impressive.

I was taken with this narrow house that we passed on the way. The pots of flowers at the top and the T-shirt and souvenire shop at the bottom are real. The decoration in between is painted on, although it seems to incorporate a real window frame.

At the right is part of our long upward path to the basilica. The stripes of colored paving bricks makes it look like a stairway, but in fact, it was a flat ramp. The ramp is flanked with arcades intended to provide shelter in bad weather for those waiting to get into the church.

The whole focus of the day was the life, work, and death of St. Francis of Assisi, who was born in the town in 1182 AD and died there in 1226 AD, age 44. He was the son of a well-to-do cloth merchant and was actually christened Giovani, but his mother was French, so his playmates always called him Francesco—the little French guy—and it stuck. He was actually born in a stable, apparently not that unusal in those days. It was the warmest place in the household, so women often chose to give birth there.

In his twenties, he was kidnapped for ransom and held for a year, During that time, he decided to change his life and to dedicate it to Christ. Now, because my religious education has been so deficient, I had formed my impression of St. Francis mainly from garden statuary—I thought of him as a tranquil, ascetic hermit with birds and bunnies cuddling up to him as he inspired by peaceful example. But no. Turns out he was a fiercely preaching firebrand who flamed out and died young.

I doubt I have the order of events straight in my mind, but at some point Francis argued with his father, tore off his clothes, and threw them at his father, saying he wanted nothing more to do with wealth. The local bishop wrapped him is a robe to cover his nakedness. The voice of god came to him to say "that's okay, you're my son."

Near the beginning of his new religious life, while kneeling before a Byzantine crucifix in the nearby church of San Damiano, he saw the crucifix bow down to him and heard the voice of god say "my church is in ruins, repair it." So he sold off a bunch of his father's stuff and tried to give he money to the church to repair the roof. According to our guide, they wouldn't take it (seems odd; perhaps they knew his father would not be pleased), so he worked at repairing the roof himself, by hand. Eventually, though he realized the voice meant the whole church, not just that building.

He began to gather followers, including a woman named Chiara (Clare), even though Francis was a Guelph (the people I mentioned in yesterday's page as siding with the Pope and self-made people, like the merchant class) and she was a Ghibelline (the ones siding with the Holy Roman Empire, the aristocracy, and those with inherited wealth). He and his followers moved down the mountain and rented a little plot of land from the Benedictine Monastery, for a bucket of fish a year. That little plot of land, called the Porziuncola, was where Francis understood his vocation and developed his philosophy, which became the Franciscan rule.

It's consequently a very holy site to the Franciscans. The papal basilica of St. Mary of the Angels, the seventh-largest Christian church (pictured above with scaffolding on the dome) is built over it.

In 1209, he traveled to Rome, to the Lateran Palace, where the pope (Innocent III) was then and waited for an audience. I think the guide said the pope dreamed the night before that he should see this young man. Francis presented the seven bylaws he had devised for a religious order, and the pope approved them, and the Franciscan order was founded. The friars take oaths of poverty, chastity, obediance. They tie three knots in their rope belts to remind them of these oaths. The guide said that cappucino is named because it's the same color as the brown robes of Cappuchin friars, a suborder of Franciscans. I always though it was because a cappucino is "hooded" with foam, like those brown robes with hoods. The word literally means "little cap."

clare, her mother and sisters, and other female followers founded their own Franciscan order, sometimes called the "Poor Clares." Their mother house is at San Damiano.

The Franciscans go out on missions to preach, and over the centuries, they have founded many missions, notably the series that runs up the coast of California (like San Juan Capistrano, San Luis Obispo, the mission a Monterey) and including Mission San Luis, here in Tallahassee (now a state park). In 1219, Francis himself went to Egypt with a crusade to preach to (or at least at) the Sultan there, who was apparently impressed with him but didn't convert.

Part of Francis's message was that all lives matter, not just humans but animals and all of creation. He even preached to the birds, at one point. But contrary to popular belief, he's not actually the patron saint of animals (that's St. Andrew). Clare, however, is the patron saint of television, because she knew what was going on in the world even though she was cloistered. I didn't see any, but I'm told you can buy rabbit ears for your TV shaped like St. Clare praying with her arms spread over her head.

Periodically, he would go off to a cave in the mountain with his faithful follower Leo and pray with his arms spread above his head to suffer as his lord had suffered. Reportedly, angels appeared and set stigmata into his hands. After that, his health declined faster than ever (probably as a result of leprosy), and he asked to return to the Porziuncola, where he died at age 44. Leo succeeded him as head of the order.

He was canonized a record two years after his death, and work immediately began on the church. The lower basilica was up and running just two years after that. It was built to house Francis's tomb; the upper one was for worship and services.

In the 19th century, the monks dug up the tomb, digging 52 nights so that the daytime pilgrims wouldn't see them. They found the stone coffin and the bones inside, but I don't think we were told what they did with them.

We visited both the upper and the lower basilicas, but unfortunately indoor photography was forbidden. Here are a couple photos of the facade—the full front panel and a closer shot of the stone carving over the double door, which is made of pink and white sandstone.

A door to the left of the main entrance is the entrance to the convent.

Written 19 February 2024

Inside, the annunciation is portrayed at the top, while Francis appears in a little triangle below the rose window, blessing everybody who enters.

The whole church interior was covered in frescoes, including a great number by Giotto and his students. Back in Art 100, I was baffled by Giotto—he was supposed to be so revolutionary, the father of the Renaissance, but I just didn't see it. I don't know whether the guides explained it better or whether my perspective and experience with other artists have changed, but I begin to see it now. Giotto was among the first (a) to experiment with one-point perspective, (b) to make his portraits actually resemble the subject, (c) to introduced emotion into the figures, and (d) to make greater use of shade and shadow. The lower-church masterpieces are mostly by contemporaries of Giotto, the ones upstairs by the man himself and his students.

In a fresco of the last judgement, a friar lowers his three-knotted rope to help one of the blessed climb up out of his grave. Our guide pointed out how espressive the painted figures were with their hands. In another image, of the baby Jesus asking Mary who to bless first, she pointing with her thumb to St. Francis.

We also saw the original hand-written copy of the Franciscan rules, written by Francis and taken to Rome for the pope's approval; it bears the official papal seal.

The building is made of a local stone. The stages in Francis's life portrayed in the upper church bring art historians from all over the world.

The lower basilica is mostly Romanesque in style, whereas the upper (of which this is the façade) leans more to the Gothic. The lower basilica has no façade.

In September 1997, 6.0 earthquake severely damaged the upper (but not the lower) basilica. Two vaults at the transcept and another near the exit fell in. Only four people were killed because the quake happened at night. The four fatalities were the group, including a journalist taking video, who went in the next morning to assess the damage. A severe aftershock struck while they were inside. That's when the vaults fell, and they were killed. The lower basilica was not damaged. The video recording was actually recovered. The basilica was closed for repairs for 11 years.

I was able to photograph the cloister because, although it is entirely enclosed by the convent, it was open to the sky and considered "outdoors." Like the basilica, it was also double-decker. The cloister is named for Pius IV, the same one of the Sistine Chapel; he was a Franciscan. On the lower level, across from our vantage point, is the Theological University of St. Francis.

Outside the basilica, facing the façade, was this expanse of lawn, slightly telephotoed here. Bushes spelled out the word "pax" ("peace") and the Greek letter "tau," symbol of St. Francis and sometimes called the "Franciscan cross."

In one corner of the lawn is this statue of a dejected St. Francis returning from a crusade. In the days before he became a monk, he had joined the army and set off to fight the infidel, but God spoke to him and ordered him home, where he had to face the scorn of his family and others who thought he left the army through cowardice.

After our tour of the basilica, Anna pointed us toward the main square of the town and turned us loose to forage for lunch on our own. The narrow little side street shown at the left here is not just striped—it really is so steep that it's just a staircase between buildings.

The other building, the one festooned with flower pots, houses the second active religious order we walked by just on the way to lunch. Its nuns are also Franciscans, but not Poor Clares.

The town is littered with churches. St. Peter's church, is Benedictine, presumably the one from which St. Francis rented the Porziuncola.

Other features we walked by included the oldest hospital in Italy, dating from the 12th century, and the 16th century Olivera Fountain. The fountain's water comes from the springs of Mount Subasio, which Assisi is on the shoulders of. Originally, it was potable and was used as the water source for the neighbordhood, so there was a fine for washing clothes in it.

At the third gate we passed through on our walk, originally a gate in the wall of the city, we passed from the basilica precincts into the town.

At one point, I finally got a chance to photograph, up close, some of the garlands of artificial flowers with which many businesses, especially Asian restaurants, like to decorate their storefronts. Sometimes, you literally cannot see the building because it's entirely covered in fake flowers!

At the right here is the façof a Roman temple of the 1st century BC, sandwiched between two newer structures. The building is now a church, called Santa Maria Sopre Minerva because it's built over the ruins of the temple of Minerva.

Assisi is located in the "other" region of Italy that is renowned for its ceramics. As the display outside this shop shows, the local products feature (in addition to all the usual lemons, tomatoes, and olives) religious scenes as well as "grotesques," like the yellow, leaf-tailed dragons at the center right in the right-hand photo.

I was struck by the copious displays in the pastry-shop windows. Or perhaps I should say confection-shop windows. Much of what was offered was variations on "rocciata di Assisi" (Umbrian strudel), filled with mixures feature nuts and dried fruit. Also available were multicolored crisp meringues-on-a-stick and "panfortes"—dense, chewy cakes of fruits, nuts, citrus, and honey.

Plus stacks and stacks of crispy, cylindrical, cream-filled cannoli in eight flavors.

David and I had been wanting to try real Italian pizza, and it was starting to rain, so we settled at a place on the town’s main square that several of our group had already chosen. David had the Peruggina pizza (mozzarella, tomato sauce, sausage); I had the boscaiola (same thing with mushrooms added).

The pizza was good, but I don’t think it was the kind that all the fuss is about. For example, their “Margherita” was made with tomato sauce and shredded mozzarella, no mention of basil, whereas the ones you see pictures of in Naples are tomato slices, gobs of fresh mozzarella, and a shower of fresh basil.

For dessert, we shared a slice of this lemon and pine-nut tart.

On our way back to the rendezvous point, we stepped inside Santa Maria Sopre Minerva to see what its decor was like.

Mostly baroque. At the left is an altar (the main one, I think), and at the right, the organ.

Back at Posta Donini, we had a few minutes before our predinner wine tasting, so I poked around a little in the gardens. At the left here is a low branch, covered with cones, of a huge deodar cedar (Cedrus deodara, aka Himalayan cedar).

At the right, a view upward into a particularly large Mediterranean umbrella pine (), the one that produces all those pine nuts.

Around the other side of the building, I found this little pool, with a waterfall cascading out of one end. In a shady spot nearby, these little white violets were blooming (in October!).

The wine tasting took place in the Posta Donini cellars and was conducted by Samir, who serves as both maitre d' and wine steward for Pantagruel.

We, or at least David, tasted two wines, a white and a red. The white was the Pantagruel house wine, 2022, produced only 4 km from here. Samir took the tasters through the various steps of serious wine tasting: step 1, look at the color (in this case, straw yellow, with greenish reflections); step 2, swirl and smell (fresh fruit aromas, apple, pear, white flowers); step 3, taste it (very dry, very young, very fresh; enjoy it with the bread, light foods). At the right, you can see Samir passing cubes of bread on toothpicks.

The red was from Montefalco, 2018. I think he said it was 18% (the white was only 12%). With that, he passed cubes of cheese.

Then it was back upstairs to Pantagruel for dinner.

I started with this beautiful and delicious tempura of squash blossoms stuffed with a mousse of ricotta and salt cod.

David chose "cream of San Marzano tomatoes" with basil, burrata cheese, and a decorative (but tasty) cylindrical crouton.

I think David's main course was "heart of veal rump," in a nest of vegetables.

I had pasta with marinated prawns.

I don't see anything on the menu resembling David's dessert, so it must have been one of the specials. It looks like whipped cream (or ice cream? or custard?) with crispy pastry shards, chocolate chips, and chocolate syrup. A deconstructed cannoli, maybe?

I had the "strawberry salad" with whipped cream and puff pastry.