Francis was the son of a cloth merchant who, in his twenties, gave up his inheritance to live the Gospel in poverty, and thousands followed him. Clare, a young noblewoman of the same town, left her family’s house to join him and founded the Poor Clares. Francis died on the evening of October 3, 1226, at the Porziuncola, the tiny chapel where his brotherhood began; it now stands inside the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli in the valley, about 4 km (2.5 miles) below the hill town.
Pilgrims come to pray in those places more than to look at them. Besides the two basilicas and the Porziuncola there is San Damiano, the small church Francis repaired and where Clare lived and died; the Eremo delle Carceri, the hermitage in the woods on the mountain above the town; and the Sanctuary of the Renunciation, the church where Francis gave everything back to his father and where St. Carlo Acutis, the teenager canonized in 2025, is entombed. The principal days are October 4, the feast of St. Francis; August 11, the feast of St. Clare; and August 2, the Porziuncola indulgence, known as the Pardon of Assisi.
Good to know before you go: Assisi is not a place of apparitions or a healing shrine. It is a place to pray where saints lived, and it rewards time. The town is steep and paved in stone, and coaches fill it through the middle of the day, so stay at least one night if you can. Early morning and evening, when the day visitors have gone, are when the tombs are quiet.