Description
The Basilica of San Francesco is one of the most important churches in Siena, in Piazza San Francesco. A great Gothic nave, with walls in bands of white and green marble, 14th-century frescoes by the Lorenzetti brothers and a Eucharistic miracle.
The interior is a single, very wide space, in the shape of a Tau cross, designed to hold a crowd of the faithful listening to sermons. The walls have the white and green bands of the Duomo, while the 36 stained-glass windows are by the Zettler firm of Munich, from the late 19th century. The big apse window, from 1889, shows the approval of Saint Francis's rule.
The treasures are in the transept chapels. Here you find the frescoes by Ambrogio Lorenzetti, detached from the convent's chapter house (1335-1340), with the Martyrdom of Six Franciscan Friars and Saint Louis of Toulouse before Boniface VIII, and the Crucifixion by his brother Pietro Lorenzetti.
On the inside of the facade are two large detached frescoes: the Coronation of the Virgin, begun by Sassetta in 1447 and finished by Sano di Pietro, and Sodoma's Nativity, from 1531. At the end of the right aisle is a wooden crucifix from the late 13th century, which survived the fire of 1655.
In the main chapel two busts are on display: they are the parents of Pope Pius II, Silvio Piccolomini and Vittoria Forteguerri, carved by Antonio Federighi in 1459. On the floor is a slab that tradition names as the tomb of Pia de' Tolomei, brought here with the Tolomei family tomb.
The most famous story is the miracle of the Sacred Hosts. On August 14, 1730 a thief carried off from the basilica a ciborium with 351 consecrated hosts. Three days later an altar boy noticed something white in the offertory box of another church, Santa Maria in Provenzano: it was them.
They were covered in dust and cobwebs, so they were not consumed but kept. And here the strange part begins: at every inspection they have been found intact, even after three centuries. For the Church it is a Eucharistic miracle, and that is why the church is also a basilica and a sanctuary.
The hosts move with the seasons: in summer and in winter they are kept in two different chapels of the transept. A little over two hundred are left, because in some tests someone even tasted them.
The present look owes a lot to the 19th century. A fire in 1655 had left the church in poor shape for over two centuries, until Giuseppe Partini's restorations (interior, 1885-1892) and the new Neo-Gothic brick facade (1894-1913) gave it today's face. The flags of the contrade hang from the walls.
The interior is a single, very wide space, in the shape of a Tau cross, designed to hold a crowd of the faithful listening to sermons. The walls have the white and green bands of the Duomo, while the 36 stained-glass windows are by the Zettler firm of Munich, from the late 19th century. The big apse window, from 1889, shows the approval of Saint Francis's rule.
The treasures are in the transept chapels. Here you find the frescoes by Ambrogio Lorenzetti, detached from the convent's chapter house (1335-1340), with the Martyrdom of Six Franciscan Friars and Saint Louis of Toulouse before Boniface VIII, and the Crucifixion by his brother Pietro Lorenzetti.
On the inside of the facade are two large detached frescoes: the Coronation of the Virgin, begun by Sassetta in 1447 and finished by Sano di Pietro, and Sodoma's Nativity, from 1531. At the end of the right aisle is a wooden crucifix from the late 13th century, which survived the fire of 1655.
In the main chapel two busts are on display: they are the parents of Pope Pius II, Silvio Piccolomini and Vittoria Forteguerri, carved by Antonio Federighi in 1459. On the floor is a slab that tradition names as the tomb of Pia de' Tolomei, brought here with the Tolomei family tomb.
The most famous story is the miracle of the Sacred Hosts. On August 14, 1730 a thief carried off from the basilica a ciborium with 351 consecrated hosts. Three days later an altar boy noticed something white in the offertory box of another church, Santa Maria in Provenzano: it was them.
They were covered in dust and cobwebs, so they were not consumed but kept. And here the strange part begins: at every inspection they have been found intact, even after three centuries. For the Church it is a Eucharistic miracle, and that is why the church is also a basilica and a sanctuary.
The hosts move with the seasons: in summer and in winter they are kept in two different chapels of the transept. A little over two hundred are left, because in some tests someone even tasted them.
The present look owes a lot to the 19th century. A fire in 1655 had left the church in poor shape for over two centuries, until Giuseppe Partini's restorations (interior, 1885-1892) and the new Neo-Gothic brick facade (1894-1913) gave it today's face. The flags of the contrade hang from the walls.