I know Matthew said we were going day by day, but some of these days are pretty jam packed, so I think we will just go until I think that is too much info. With that, off we go again.

Day 3 begins with us going to the Basilica of St. Francis and Celebrating Mass at his tomb.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilica_of_San_Francesco_d

Wikipedia has a good over view. I will try to go a little more in depth. Here is the link to St. Francis of Assisi.

http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/SaintOfDay/default.asp?id=1158

The basilica was started by Pope Gregory IX in 1228. Here is some history of him.

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06796a.htm

Here is a web-site that has the layouts of both Basilicas, but they didn’t seem the most helpful.

http://www.icvbc.cnr.it/bivi/eng/schede/Umbria/Assisi/0sanfrancesco.htm

2 of the main Artist mentioned were Cimabue and Giotto. Here are some sites on Cimabue. He was the teacher of Giotto, who seems to have done more of the paintings in the Basilica.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cimabue
http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/g/giotto/index.html


Here are a couple of websites about Giotto that show a lot of galleries so you can look through his art. Using the wga website and the floor plans gives you a little bit of a feel of where things are.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giotto_di_Bondone
http://www.aiwaz.net/gallery/giotto-di-bondone/gc20
http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/g/giotto/index.html

I am going to try and go through Wikipedia’s walkthrough. One word I came across, and this will not be the first, I wasn’t sure what it meant. Transept is any major transverse part of the body of a church, usually crossing the nave, at right angles, at the entrance to the choir. A chapel is; 1. A private or subordinate place of prayer or worship; oratory. 2. A separately dedicated part of a church, or a small independent churchlike edifice, devoted to special services. It appears that there are chapels and transepts that run along both sides of most of these basilicas and a transept is larger and a chapel is a smaller area for worship. The only reason I went through all that is because on the floor plans, chapels and transepts look similar. Looks like each chapel has a Saint that it is dedicated to it. So I am going to give the Saint link, by number, matched to the layout of the lower basilica. If this works, that will be it for this section of the guide. It looks like you enter from the bottom left, so I will go counter clockwise through the chapels. This may not be correct, but it is the closest I can figure.

1. St. Sebastian http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/SaintOfDay/default.asp?id=1266
2. St. Catherine of Alexandria http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/SaintOfDay/default.asp?id=1616
3. St. Louis of Toulouse http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/SaintOfDay/default.asp?id=1105
St. Stephen http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/SaintOfDay/default.asp?id=1241
4. St. Anthony of Padua http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/SaintOfDay/default.asp?id=1413
5. St. Mary Magdalene http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/SaintOfDay/default.asp?id=1084
6. St. Nicolas of Bari http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=371
7. St. John the Baptist http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=152
8. St. Peter of Alcantara http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=777
9. St. Martin of Tours http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=81

If you make it through all those, you will notice that I found another Saint web-site. It seems to have a lot more info and more Saints. So I will be using that one. I am beginning to get a good source of web-sites for saints and artist. Anyway, next guide we will look at the Crypt and Upper Basilica.

MILK