Basilica of Santa Maria Degli Angeli - The Rose Garden and The Rose Chapel

The Rose Garden and The Rose Chapel

One enters the rose garden via the sacristy. It is the last remains of the ancient wood in which St Francis and his friars lived. Here he talked to the turtle doves, inviting them to praise the Lord. Doves have been nesting since times immemorial in the hands of the statue of St. Francis in this rose garden.

According to tradition (already attested at the end of the 13th century), one night St. Francis, feeling the temptation to abandon his way of life, rolled naked in the bramble thorns in an attempt to overcome doubt and temptation. In contact with his body, the bramble bushes turned into dog roses without thorns. Since then, the dog rose cultivar Rosa canina assisiensis has been grown in the garden.

From the rose garden, one enters the Rose Chapel. This was the cell where St. Francis rested and spent the rest of the night in prayer and penance. Here St. Francis also met Saint Anthony of Padua. After his death a chapel was built in the 13th century, enlarged in the 15th century by St. Bernardine of Siena. It was decorated between 1506 and 1516 with a series of frescoes by several painters, among which the Umbrian Tiberio d'Assisi, depicting the early Franciscan community and the first saints of the order, the miracle of the roses and the concession of the indulgence