“So many guests of ours say that a visit to Assisi is a unique experience, some enjoy these sensations for the first time and, to live them again, they come back...
We find that - independently of the holiness of Saint Francis, which lives again every day in the smells, the stones -, in the beauties of Assisi there is a unique air.. that everybody perceives just that very moment they step in to Assisi in particular, and in Umbria in general ... all you need is the will to sense it...”
Gianluca and Elisabetta
Assisi, just as the rest of the Region after all, was originally inhabited by the Umbri. Later on, the Town is influenced by the Etruscan and Roman civilisation documented - the latter - by the numerous Roman monuments, such as the façade of the Temple of Minerva, the remains of the Forum, the Roman enceinte and the Amphitheatre.
After the Fall of the Ronan Empire, around 545 AD, the Goths - and later on - the Lombards, settle down here. It is only in year 1000 that it becomes an independent commune and, just in this period, it enjoys an incredible period of development.
From 1200 to 1500 old and new lords – among whom the Visconti, Montefeltro and Sforza dynasties - rule Assisi alternatively, while it is continually ravaged by the inner contrasts between the porta De Sopra and the porta De Sotto.
From the XVI century till 1860 it is an integral part of the territory of the State of the Church.
In 1181 Saint Francis is born and, in 1202, during a war with nearby Perugia, Francis is captured and kept in jail for more than a year.
Starting in 1206, Francis devotes himself wholeheartedly to Christ by serving and helping the poor, while living, he himself, as a poor man. That is why he eventually renounces to all his worldly goods publicly.
He dies in 1226 and, only two years later, he is proclaimed a saint by pope Gregory IX.
Nowadays, Assisi is the destination of unending pilgrimages of the faithful that come from all over the world.
The town is rich in truly beautiful monuments and in priceless works of art. This setting is framed in a wonderful, luxurious landscape which makes Francis’s small town a unique jewel, acknowledged nowadays even as part of the UNESCO’s worldwide patrimony.
