Santa Maria degli Angeli, Assisi, Umbria, Italy

Writing 37 years after the death of St. Francis (Legenda Major, 1263), St. Bonaventure described Francis's love for St. Mary of the Angels and her chapel near Assisi:   

The Portiuncula was an old church dedicated to the Virgin Mother of God which was abandoned. Francis had great devotion to the Queen of the world and when he saw that the church was deserted, he began to live there constantly in order to repair it. He heard that the Angels often visited it, so that it was called Saint Mary of the Angels, and he decided to stay there permanently out of reverence for the angels and love for the Mother of Christ. He loved this spot more than any other in the world. It was here he began his religious life in a very small way; it is here he came to a happy end. When he was dying, he commended this spot above all others to the friars, because it was most dear to the Blessed Virgin. This was the place where Saint Francis founded his Order by divine inspiration.

Bonaventure omitted the tradition that, at Francis's urging, Pope Honorius III (1216-1227) granted a plenary indulgence—full remission of punishment due for sins—to anyone who visited the Portiuncula and made confession between sunset August 1 and sunset August 2, the chapel's dedication date. For centuries, because of that tradition, pilgrims have flocked to Assisi on this date for the Feast of Pardon, carrying devotion to Our Lady of the Angels back to their homelands throughout Catholic Europe. 

Later popes extended the blessing to other Franciscan churches visited on August 2 as well. The little chapel was probably built in the 800s, although some say it goes back to the 300s and belonged to St. Benedict himself (d. 547). At any rate, it belonged to the Benedictines at the time of St. Francis, who gave them an annual basket of fish as rent. In 1569, Pope St. Pius V ordered construction of a magnificent church to surround and protect the Portiuncula. Not completed until 1679, and rebuilt after the earthquake of 1832, the church was proclaimed a Basilica by Pope Pius X in 1909. 

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