Room San Damiano

In this rural oratory, just outside the town walls, in the summer of 1205 AD St. Francis heard the Crucifix urging him to restore the Church; in the cave under the building, the Saint hid from his father who hindered his monastic choice. Here Santa Chiara spent her monastic experience starting from 1212 AD and founded the order of the Poor Clares and the Canticle of the Creatures was written. What is most striking about the place is the silence, and the sense of detachment that anyone feels when passing from the village to this church; San Damiano is, after all, just over a kilometer from the Basilica of San Francesco, but, perhaps because of the olive groves that surround it, or perhaps because it is visited more by pilgrims in prayer than by simple tourists, the distance seems much greater.