Basilica of Santa Chiara

The Basilica of Santa Chiara is the church built for Saint Clare, the friend and follower of Francis who founded the Poor Clares, and it remains a working sanctuary. It stands in Piazza Santa Chiara, near Porta Nuova, and its pink-and-white stone walls make it easy to spot.^1,2,3

Construction began in 1257, beside the older church of San Giorgio, and the adjoining monastery was built at the same time. On 3 October 1260 Clare's remains were placed beneath the high altar, and the church was consecrated in 1265.^4,5

Clare herself had first been buried at San Giorgio, and the new basilica rose right beside that earlier church. Today the Chapel of San Giorgio opens from the right side of the nave, which keeps that first chapter of the story close at hand.⁴

The church and its neighbors have distinct lives. Friars Minor serve the basilica and the chaplaincy of the monastery next door, where a community of cloistered Poor Clares lives.³

The church is classified as Umbrian Gothic, and its design is generally attributed, with some caution, to the Franciscan friar Filippo da Campello. The three dates of 1257, 1260 and 1265 mark the beginning, the arrival of Clare's remains and the consecration, rather than the moment every chapel and painted surface was finished.^5,4

White and pink stone from Monte Subasio is laid in horizontal courses across the exterior, which gives the walls their banded, glowing look. The gabled facade has a recessed portal, a large rose window and a small oculus above. Walk around the building and you will find transepts, a polygonal east end and a campanile, so the church reads as a three-dimensional whole rather than a single postcard front.²

Three large flying buttresses brace the north side, and one of them carries an inscription of 1351. The supports on the south side are absorbed into the monastery. The stone of the rose window is medieval, while its glazing by Moretti-Caselli was installed only in 1927.²

Inside, a single nave rises gently through four cross-vaulted bays toward the transept and a polygonal apse. A passage runs around the upper wall at the level of the capitals. The nave is relatively plain, so your eye goes to the painted works gathered near the transept.⁴

Two chapels beside the transept were added after the original plan. The Chapel of Sant'Agnese, on the left, now serves as the chapel of the Blessed Sacrament. The Chapel of San Giorgio, on the right, holds the San Damiano Cross and borders the sisters' choir, so it is a place for quiet rather than lingering.⁴

The Chapel of San Giorgio also contains a Majesty associated with the painter Puccio Capanna, along with other fourteenth-century murals.⁴

Look up above the high altar and you will see four vault cells, each showing a pair of women saints: Mary and Clare, Cecilia and Lucy, Agnes the martyr and Agnes of Assisi, and Catherine of Alexandria and Margaret.⁶

The San Damiano Cross is the church's best-known treasure, and it is worth remembering that it is not the same thing as the basilica or the sanctuary of San Damiano. The Poor Clares brought it with them from San Damiano when they moved to their new monastery, and it is now displayed in the Chapel of San Giorgio.⁷

The Cross is Byzantine-influenced and probably the work of an unknown artist of the first half of the twelfth century, with paint on rough linen laid over a walnut panel. It shows Christ with open eyes among surrounding figures.⁷

A second painted cross is easy to confuse with it. Above the high altar hangs a shaped cross known as the cross of Mother Benedetta, dated to around 1260 and attributed to the Master of Santa Chiara.⁴

The transepts hold two large panels. In the northern transept, the Santa Chiara panel is dated by its inscription to 1283 and commonly attributed to the Master of Santa Chiara. It measures 276 by 163 centimeters and surrounds the central figure of Clare with eight scenes from her life.⁸

On the east wall of the southern transept, the Madonna della Cortina panel shows the Virgin as Hodegetria, holding and indicating the blessing Child while angels lift a curtain behind her.⁹

The walls of the transepts carry older frescoes too. The northern transept preserves Genesis scenes and a Nativity, and the southern transept scenes from the life of the Virgin and the infancy of Christ, a Last Judgment, and scenes of Clare's death and funeral.⁴

The story of Clare's burial is told in a sequence of dates. She was buried at San Giorgio in August 1253 and moved beneath the new high altar on 3 October 1260. Her tomb was opened on 23 September 1850, work on the public crypt ran from 1852 to 1872, and a later enlargement created the area where relics are displayed.^10,5

At the center of the original crypt, a dodecagonal structure marks the passage where the simple travertine sarcophagus was found, and it also serves as an altar.¹⁰

Behind a grille, an urn of crystal and Monte Subasio stone holds a body-shaped reliquary resting on a rough wooden board. The reliquary contains Clare's surviving remains, so what pilgrims see is a clothed reliquary, not an intact body.¹⁰

An examination in 1986 to 1987 found that 57 bones remained. Through an opening the sisters can see the bones, while pilgrims see the clothed body-reliquary.¹¹

A newer area of the crypt displays a group of Franciscan and Clarian relics.¹⁰

Santa Chiara is not inscribed on its own. UNESCO inscribed Assisi, the Basilica of San Francesco and Other Franciscan Sites in 2000 under criteria i, ii, iii, iv and vi, a serial property larger than the basilica itself.¹²

Santa Chiara sits within the Assisi historic-center component of that property, while the second component covers Santa Maria degli Angeli.¹³

Plan on treating the church as a sanctuary first. Start outside with the facade and buttresses, give the nave a quiet moment, then visit the Chapel of San Giorgio in silence. The main doorway has six steps, but a side entrance under the arches has a small ramp and the nave is on one level. The crypt below is reached by a stairway of 27 steps with a handrail and is not wheelchair accessible.¹⁴

Opening arrangements and worship times are set by the basilica, so check its official site before you go.¹⁴