To celebrate the 800th anniversary of the death of St. Francis (October 3, 1226), over 50 streeet artists – madonnari – from all over the world created masterpieces in the piazza before the splendid 13th-century Basilica di San Francesco where the Saint is buried:
San Francesco was the central figure in almost every Madonnara…
A madonnaro created an image of San Francesco receiving the stigmata while praying on Mount La Verna in 1224…..
….and more than one image depicted the Saint with the wolf of Gubbio, for legend tells us Francesco made peace between a wolf attacking the sheep of Gubbio and the local people (the wolf probably representing an attacking aggressive city-state):
.
….and the Saint’s first female follower, Santa Chiara, was there, too:
The madonnari worked all day on August 28th…. continuing on August 29th.
I headed early to the Basllica di San Francesco on the morning of the 29th before work began: many madonnari had worked til late the previous night and were still resting.
Do read here about the history of the Madonnari.
Do enjoy my video on the Madonnari creations recently done in Assisi.
