Gubbio: St. Francis

                                                                                                                                      

 

 

Edward Hutton concluded Assisi and Umbria Revisited in Gubbio. As usual, he related the history of the town, and visited the various churches. He also quoted at length the familiar story of the taming of a ferocious wolf by St. Francis. But here is a less familiar story as well as the ending of Hutton's book.  I also include two end notes that might be of interest to followers of Hutton. 

Just before I crossed the watershed I came on the hill-top to a mass of building with tower and bell-turret which proved to be the Badia di Vallengegno, but of old was the monastery of San Verecondo, where it is said S. Francis was employed as a scullion after he had been thrown into a ditch full of snow by brigands on his first wandering to Gubbio. He was thus employed, according to Thomas of Celano, for several days, “wearing nothing but a wretched shirt and desired to be filled at least with broth. But when, meeting with no pity there, he could not even get any old clothing, he left the place (not moved by anger but by need) and came to the city of Gubbio, where he got him a small tunic from a former friend of his. But afterwards,” says Thomas, “when the fame of the man of God was spreading everywhere, and his name was noised abroad among the people, the prior of the aforesaid monastery, remembering and realizing how the man of God had been treated, came to him and humbly begged forgiveness for himself, and his monks.” …

 

It is said of S. Francis that death, which is to all men terrible, and hateful, he praised, calling her by name: “Death, my sister, welcome be thou”; and that one of those best-loved brothers saw his soul pass to heaven in the manner of a star, “like to the moon in quantity, and to the sun in clearness”. And however we may think of him, whether he is to us the most beloved saint in all the calendar, or whether he is merely a delightful figure, a little ailing, a little mad from the Middle Age, he went honourably upon the stones, as Voragine reminds us. “He gadryd the wormes out of the ways, by cause they should not be trodden with the feet of them that passed by.” He called the beasts his brethren; and in all that age of passion and war, of immense ambition and brutal hate, he loved us as Christ has done, and was content if he might be an imitation of Him. “He beheld the Sonne, the Mone, and the Starres, and summoned them to the Love of their Maker.”

 

As we pass up and down the Umbrian ways, it is his figure which goes ever before us.

 

                                         Que pacis crescit oliva

                               Regnat amor, concors, gratia, vera fides.*

 

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*           Where the olive tree of peace grows

           Love, concord, grace, and true faith reign.

 

 

Edward Hutton: Assisi and Umbria Revisited, London, 1953. Pp. 221,233-234.

Note 1: In his introduction to the above volume, Hutton alluded to one of his first books, The Cities of Umbria, written in 1907.

"When I was a young man I wrote a book, Cities of Umbria, which went into eight or more editions and finally fell out of print in the war of 1939-45. I have not thought to reprint it. Since it was written I have wandered about Umbria many times and most recently spent some months of spring, summer and autumn in that country where one cannot go a mile but one finds oneself in the footsteps of Saint Francis. and now that my life has nearly completed its circle, the pages which follow recount these fortunate wanderings and recall those happier still, of earlier days."

Note 2: I would also like to mention that Hutton included in this volume an appendix in which he discussed the controversy surrounding the frescoes in the Upper Church of San Francesco in Assisi. In the course of that discussion he mentioned that before the First World War, he and his friend, F. Mason Perkins had been working on a critical edition of Vasari's Lives of the Painters.

"Mr. Perkins and the present writer were engaged on a critical edition of the Lives of Vasari. The new English translation of the text was made by Mr. De Vere and was published by the Medici Society. It was to be followed by three or four volumes of critical notes by Mr. Perkins, but though the first volume of these notes was set up and printed, the war of 1914 prevented publication and the type was distributed."