Of
Umbrian origins, the settlement became a Roman municipium under the
name of Asisium. Until the 13th century the extension of
the town coincided with the Roman one. Bishop Rufinus evangelised the
inhabitants in 238 A.D. Taken by Totila in 545, it then became part of
the Longobard and Frankish Duchy of Spoleto. In the 11th
century a free commune is constituted: being of Ghibelline faith it
always lived in opposition to the Guelfish Perugia. In 1198, taking
advantage from the absence of the imperial vicar, Conrad von Lutzen,
the inhabitants of Assisi attacked his fortress.
As
Perugia tried to interfere with the liberation struggle of Assisi, the
latter marched against Perugia and was beaten in a battle at Ponte San
Giovanni. Among the prisoners taken by Perugia was a certain
22-years-old Giovanni di Bernardone, called Francesco. He was born in
the winter between 1181 and 1182 as the child of a wealthy textile
tradesman, Pietro di Bernardone, whose family came from Lucca, and his
Provencal wife Pica.
After
the captivity in Perugia, Francesco decided to make a reputation for
knighthood participating in the crusade of Walter de Brienne, but an
illness forced him to renounce already at Spoleto. In the meantime, in
Assisi in 1197 was christened the future emperor Frederick II, three
years after his birth on the market square of Jesi (near Ancona).
Francesco decided to change his life, renouncing to the riches and the
eases of his family fortune and praying at San Damiano had the vision
which ordered him to restore the Church (1205).
In
1208, Francesco who had in the meantime received as a gift from the
Benedictines the chapel of St. Maria degli Angeli, called as well the
Porziuncola, founded his order of the Grey-Friars. After his encounter
with Chiara di Favarone di Offreduccio, daughter of a noble Assisi
family, in 1212 he founded for her a second order, the Clarisse's.
Finally, in 1221 he founded in Cannara the Third Order (a lay-order).
In 1224 he received at La Verna the stigmata and in 1226 expired at
the Porziuncola. Only two years later he was proclaimed saint and the
day after Pope Gregory IX laid the foundation stone of the church and
the convent planned by Brother Elias, a companion of the Saint. Also
St. Clare was canonised two years after her death of 1253 and a year
later begun the construction of the church in her honour.
Notwithstanding
the presence of these two eminent religious figures the future history
of Assisi did not show many traces of it. In 1316 it enlarged its
town-walls, incorporating the convent and church of St. Francis, the
Benedictine convent of St. Peter and the town quarter Borgo Aretino.
The decline of Assisi begun after the black death in 1348. In order to
assure the Pontifical dominion over Assisi, Cardinal Aegidius Albornoz
erected in 1367 the Rocca Maggiore on top of the ruins of the former
imperial fortress. Since the 14th century and until the 16th
century the two major Assisi families, the Nepis (of the upper town=Parte
de Sopra) and the Fiumi (of the lower town=Parte de Sotto) continued
to fight each other bitterly, although the town was dominated for long
periods by several seigniories (Biordo Michelotti, Broglio di Trinci,
Galeazzo Visconti, Braccio Fortebraccio, Francesco Sforza, Jacopo
Piccinino). Only under the reign of Pope Pius II Piccolomini (1458-64)
the domination of the Church over Assisi has been definitely restored.
|