San Francesco, Assisi - Lower Church


Chapel of Sant'Antonio da Padova (St. Anthony of Padua)



  This chapel belonged to some important families over the years. In the early fifteenth century it passed to the Montefeltros of  Urbino, who held it for two hundred years before it passed to the Medicis, who seem to have forgotten that they owned it.  Paying for chapels was the medieval equivalent of a Mercedes in the driveway, but the Medicis had a pretty impressive fleet elsewhere. 
     The chapel was frescoed in 1610 by the local artist Cesare Sermei with scenes from the life of St Anthony of Padua. Here are two of them. 



Saint Anthony before Pope Gregory IX



St Anthony and the Mule

An aside: the story of the Mule.
  An odd and perhaps not entirely convincing story.  St Anthony was in Rimini, where he came across a 'heretic'  who announced that he would not believe the real presence of the Lord in the Mass unless a mule, unbidden, knelt before the sacrament. Anthony held the sacrament in his right hand, and some oats in his left. Guess what? A passing mule obliged, ignoring the food and kneeling before the sacrament. 

Stained glass
  The stained glass dates from the early 14th century. The rose window shows head and shoulders of distinguished Franciscans, including St Louis of Toulouse. The panels in the windows below show events in the life of St Anthony of Padua. 

 

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