Basilica of San Francesco d'Assisi

The Basilica of San Francesco in Assisi is the burial church of Saint Francis of Assisi, construction beginning in 1228, just two years after his canonization. A papal basilica and part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site, it is built as two stacked churches into the hillside — an Upper Basilica flooded with light and a darker, more intimate Lower Basilica below. The Upper Basilica's fresco cycle, attributed to the young Giotto di Bondone, depicts 28 scenes from the life of Francis and is widely considered a turning point in Western painting, moving away from Byzantine flatness toward naturalistic expression. Beneath both churches lies the crypt housing Francis's stone sarcophagus, rediscovered only in 1818 after being deliberately hidden for centuries to prevent theft of the relics. The complex draws pilgrims and art historians in equal measure, its medieval hillside setting in Assisi forming an inseparable part of the experience.