Below Assisi, Umbria
San Damiano
What is there today
It is a ten minute walk down from Assisi among the olive trees. Inside survive the wooden choir where Clare s nuns prayed and the small dormitory where she died. The cross venerated there is a copy: the original is in the basilica of Saint Clare, up in the town.
Why this image comes from here
Clare spent forty years without leaving this place, and out of that enclosure came the first monastic rule written by a woman for women to be approved by Rome. The scene that fixes her iconography happened at this door: she came out holding the monstrance to face the troops coming up.
Pieces from this place
- Saint Clare of Assisi
- The little church of San Damiano is a ten minute walk down from Assisi among the olive trees. She lived there forty years without leaving, and the wooden choir of her nuns is still in place.