Stone upon stone: an Italian sojourn: The tale of Francesco

For the last two variable weather days of rain showers, sleet spots, patches of hot sun, tufts of low cloud, and windy spells, we have been traipsing around the countryside following in the footsteps of St Francis.

Francesco, as he was called, was a local Assisi lad about town. A cloth trader's son. Reasonably well off, popular, a little on the wild side. He went off with a band of his merry Assisians to fight the neighbouring hill town foes, the Perugians: but was on the losing team that time and taken prisoner of war for a goodly twelve months, during which time he became ill with a low grade fever that was hard to shake and that lead to visions.

During his long recuperation he began a period of soul-searching and reflection about his life: what it was all about. What he might do with the rest of his. Having wasted so much of it already, he believed.

He thought to join the military, but enroute heard a voice calling him to return home, which he followed. And for a time he was chided as a deserter: his friends wondering whatever had happened to their happy-go-lucky mate, who now began to give away his money to the poor, wear ragged clothes and live on the streets, until his father attempted to drag him home to try to talk some sense to him.

He soon broke with his family, found shelter in mountain retreats or local churches with sympathetic priests, and began leading a life of poverty, chastity and obedience, dedicated to serving God by caring for others: while hearing voices telling him to repair the church. This, too, he proceeded to do: taking rocks and stones and repairing local broken ruins but coming slowly to the realisation, that his life's work was to be larger than that. Followers came to help him out. They, too, donned simple mud-coloured robes and knotted a rope at the waist, like Francesco. They, too, roamed the hills and valleys and gathered even more folk as followers: all drawn to their good works and simple life creed.

The Benedictines offered this little band of friars a small chapel at Portziuncola, St Mary of the Angels. Here they established a base and from this collection of wattle and daub huts grew the amazing Franciscan Order, a body of brethren who have given up their worldly goods and devote their lives to the care and welfare of others.

That renovated chapel still stands to this day. It is tiny. Though now it rests like a small jewel, deep in the heart of a massive papal basilica that has been built up all around it, and dwarfs it; but the majority of tourists who pour through the doors of this grand basilica, see nothing but the humble chapel that Francesco helped rebuild with his own hands.

It was here, that Clare, a wealthy heiress from Assisi, a strong and faithful supporter, was welcomed, renouncing her worldly goods and taking vows that ended with her setting up the Order of the Poor Clares to continue the work of the Franciscans.

Francesco's little prayer niche, where his own hut lay, also survives: albeit transformed and now heavily decorated with frescoes painted by ardent followers.

As does the rose garden, where Francesco in a moment of self-doubt and flagellation threw himself onto a thorn bush, which followers believe God instantly turned into a rose bush without thorns -- the Rosa Canina Assisiensis -- which grows in the same spot today, it is said.

The infirmary cell where Francesco died on the 3 October, 1226 at just 44 years of age still survives, just a few metres from his little church.

The complex, these days, is enormous. Brown-robed friars in large numbers wander throughout chapels, residences, conference centres, and vast halls filled with busy Franciscan folk and their followers. The community is thriving.

And just four kilometres away in Assisi is a building constructed after Francis's death that occupies nearly half the hill on which Assisi stands: the town where Franceso was born: the massive Basilica of St Francis: one of the most beautiful churches in all of Italy, every inch of its walls filled with exquisite works of art by Giotto and his apprentices.

Here, behind an altar in the crypt, lies the body of St Francis, canonised soon after his death, with even more followers today than when he lived some eight hundred years ago. The Basilica of St Francis which was built to house his relics occupies half the Assisi mountain side: upper and lower churches, and 53 long arches of pink and white stone, the Friary, the Sacro Convento, with quarters for monks, a vast library, a museum, and a reliquary, which holds, among other treasures, the small silver chalice and platen that Francesco used, the simple tunic and slippers that he died in, and a prayer he wrote for a fellow brother signed with his T-cross signature, the last letter in the Hebrew alphabet, faithful to the end.

Today it has become a symbol for the Order of the Franciscans and hoards of followers recognise it as the mark of St Francis. One of the most beloved saints in all of Christendom.