Giotto's Life of Saint Francis: An Indoor Audio Tour of the Basilica

On this indoor audio tour, you’ll explore the Basilica of Saint Francis through the painted world of Giotto and his workshop, following one of the most powerful visual stories of the Middle Ages. Rather than simply walking through the church and looking up at the frescoes, you’ll learn how to read them: how gestures, faces, architecture, landscapes, clothing, and small everyday objects helped transform sacred stories into vivid human experience.

The tour begins outside the Basilica of Saint Francis before leading you into the luminous Upper Basilica, where the famous cycle of 28 scenes from the life of Saint Francis unfolds along the nave. You’ll follow Francis from his first gestures of generosity and renunciation to his preaching, visions, stigmata, death, canonization, and posthumous miracles.

You’ll then descend into the more intimate atmosphere of the Lower Basilica, where the story changes tone. Here, Francis’ life is no longer told only as biography, but contemplated through allegory, symbolism, and spiritual meaning. The tour ends in the Chapel of Mary Magdalene, where another great story of transformation unfolds through love, grief, recognition, solitude, and devotion.

During this 75-minute indoor tour, you’ll:

• Follow the great cycle of 28 frescoes from the life of Saint Francis in the Upper Basilica
• Discover how Giotto and his workshop gave new weight to bodies, gestures, emotions, and painted space
• See key Franciscan scenes including the Crucifix of San Damiano, the Renunciation of Worldly Goods, the Sermon to the Birds, and the Stigmata at La Verna
• Learn why the Basilica of Saint Francis became one of the most important painted environments in medieval Europe
• Descend into the Lower Basilica and experience its darker, richer, more contemplative atmosphere
• Look up at the vault above the high altar, with its allegories of Poverty, Chastity, Obedience, and Saint Francis in Glory
• Explore scenes from Christ’s childhood in the right transept, where colour, architecture, and perspective create an extraordinary sense of sacred presence
• Enter the Chapel of Mary Magdalene and discover how her story mirrors the theme of spiritual transformation at the heart of the tour

Let the silence of Assisi guide you as you uncover the stories painted into its walls, and discover why this basilica remains one of the great places where art, faith, memory, and human emotion still breathe together.