The San Damiano crucifix
The original painted cross in a side chapel.
Gunnar Bach Pedersen — Public domain · Caba2011 — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Effems — CC0 · Effems — CC0
**A pink-and-white striped church propped by three enormous flying buttresses — holding the crucifix that spoke to Francis** — at Assisi's eastern end. Built from **1257** to house the remains of **Clare of Assisi** — **the first woman to follow Francis**, and founder of the **Poor Clares**. ⚠ **Its front is striped in pink and white stone** from Monte Subasio — **the stone of all Assisi**. ⚠ **Its three great flying buttresses** on the flank were added in the 14th century **to stop the church collapsing** — **and became its distinguishing mark**. ✅ **In its chapel hangs the original crucifix from San Damiano** — **the cross that tradition says spoke to Francis and told him to repair the church**, moved here. ✅ **And the terrace in front has a wide view over the plain.**
The original painted cross in a side chapel.
Three great arches propping the church's flank.
The whole Umbrian plain from the terrace in front.
Piazza Santa Chiara, 06081 Assisi, Italy
Rocca Maggiore**A fortress on the summit above Assisi — and the view from it is the picture of2 minutes walk4.6
The Temple of Minerva**A complete Roman temple front of six columns, with a Baroque church behind it*4 minutes walk4.6
Basilica of Saint Francis**Two churches stacked on one another with a tomb beneath, and twenty-eight Giot14 minutes walk4.8**A noblewoman who fled her home to live in absolute poverty — and fought three popes to keep the right to own nothing.** ✅ **Who she was**: **Clare** (1194–1253), daughter of a **wealthy noble family** in Assisi. ⚠ **In 1212, aged eighteen, she left her house at night** and joined Francis and his companions — **who cut her hair and clothed her in rough cloth**; ⚠ **her family tried to take her back by force and she refused**. ✅ **What she founded**: a **women's order** later known as the **Poor Clares** — **an enclosed life of silence, prayer and work**, **and total poverty**. ⚠ **And here is the radicalism**: **women's convents were traditionally endowed with land and property** guaranteeing their survival; **Clare refused that** — **insisting her community own nothing at all**, living on daily alms, **exactly as the Franciscan men did**. ⚠ **The conflict**: **the Church saw this as dangerous for women in an enclosed house** — **and successive popes tried to impose a milder rule on her**, ✅ **and she resisted for decades**, **writing her own rule** — ⚠ **the first woman in the Church's history to write a monastic rule**; ✅ **approved two days before her death in 1253**.