Basilica di Santa Chiara di Assisi
It's unique architectural style is characterized by the execution of the whole body of the Basilica with pink and white bands of Subasio stone and by the majestic flying buttresses supporting the two sides of the church.
The interior is structured like the upper church of S. Francesco with a single nave ending in a transept with a polygonal apse. Here, too, a gallery runs along the perimeter, however, unlike St. Francis, at the height of the column capitals.
On the nave, near the transept, the two chapels open sideways: Sant’Agnese d’Assisi and San Giorgio. They were not part of the original plan of the basilica, but were added later, as happened in the upper Basilica of St. Francis.
The Chapel of Sant’Agnese, later also called San Michele, which, with the restoration works of 1999-2001, became the chapel of the SS. Sacramento, is on the left side and is accessed by a large ogival arch, resized at the bottom by a stone balustrade, fitted with a wrought iron gate.
At the right side of the second, third and fourth bay of the basilica, there is the chapel of San Giorgio. Here the Crucifix is preserved, which in S. Damiano spoke to S. Francesco, ordering him to "repair" the Church.
In the part behind the Crucifix, today Presbytery (former chapel of the Holy Sacrament), fresco by Puccio Capanna (1340-46), Madonna and Child enthroned with the Saints Clare, Giovanni Battista, Giovanni Evangelista and Francesco, and other frescoes of the school of Giotto and Lorenzetti.
In the left transept of the basilica, a table with the Life of St. Clare by the so-called Master of the S. Clare (end of the 13th century); detached fresco with Giotto's Nativity from the 14th century. In the lunettes, scenes from the Old Testament, similar to those of the upper cycle in the upper basilica of St. Francis (end of the 13th century).
The main altar is enclosed by a colonnade of 12 polygonal columns, the work of an Umbrian stonemason of the fifteenth century, with a wrought-iron gate of the 18th century. Above the main altar stands the grandiose shaped cross (1255-1260), attributed to the so-called "Master of Santa Chiara", recently identified with the painter Benvenuto Benveni da Foligno, who also wants to be the author of the painting of S. Chiara and that of the Madonna della Cortina. At the feet of Christ, Francesco and Chiara adoring and the image of the Abbess Benedetta who commissioned her
Above the altar, in the sails of the cross vault, the "Expressionist Master of S. Clare", that is, Palmerino by Guido da Assisi (1330-1335), collaborator of Giotto in the Basilica of S. Francesco, proposed with excellent expressive ability , the triumph of Christian virginity. In the sail towards the apse: Madonna with the Child and S. Chiara; in the opposite sail virgin S. Agnese and S. Agnese of Assisi, sister of S. Chiara. In the left wing S. Caterina and S. Margherita, while in the right wing are S. Cecilia and S. Lucia.
In the crypt, built in 1850-72, renovated in 1935 in Neo-Gothic style, the sarcophagus is preserved with the body of St. Clare, found in 1850.
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