Basilica of San Francesco d'Assisi
Assisi, Umbria
The two-level basilica built within two years of St. Francis's 1228 canonization, frescoed by Giotto, Cimabue, and Cavallini, and the mother church of the Franciscan order.
The Franciscan mother church stands on the hill of Paradise in Assisi: an upper basilica frescoed by Giotto and Cimabue, a lower one darker and more austere, and the tomb of Francis beneath both. Pope Gregory IX laid its first stone in 1228, two years after the saint's death.
Associated traditions & practices
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Traditions historically rooted in this region — offered as background context, not as a claim about this particular place.
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