I will go into more detail on my History of Assisi page. But briefly, St. Francis was the son of a powerful merchant. He was also a very religious man. When he witnessed the obscene wealth of his father and the church, he decided that he had enough. He cast away from his family and took up a religious life of poverty. During his long life, he taught the ways of Jesus by example. Together, with St. Clair of the poor Clairs, he taught a life of piety and poverty. 2 Huge orders grew out of their work. St. Francis was buried, as per his request, outside of the city.

   There was one catch. People wanted to remember St. Francis. So a huge Basilica was built to house his body. And it needed to be decorated. So, very talented painters came and painted the various walls of the Basilica. So each years, thousands come to see St. Francis's tomb, plus the great murals in the churches of Assisi, painted in his honor.

  In June of 1997 an Earthquake shook the city. Some of the artwork was destroyed. However, the government has spent the last three years making repairs and attempting to preserve what remains. They are just starting to open the city back up.

These are photos I took over in 1999 using a film camera so they had to be scanned into the pageWhen I first built this webpage, most people still used dialup. Therefore, the photos were also made into a low resolution format. Still, I hope you enjoy the photos. Any comments, please E-mail me, .