Church of San Giacomo de Murorupto

The Church of San Giacomo de Murorupto has become a very popular site in Assisi in recent years: every day, fans from all over Italy go to visit the monastery of the Angeline sisters, where many scenes of the highly popular RAI 1 television series Che Dio ci Aiuti (“May God Help Us”) were filmed.

The church was built in the 11th century close to the dilapidated medieval city walls, hence its name of San Giacomo de murorupto (St. James of the Broken Wall). It was under the Benedictine Farfa Abbey in the province of Rieti; it then went to the Damianites, who in turn ceded ownership to the canons of San Rufino, in exchange for the Church of San Giorgio. Thus, while the followers of Saint Clare settled in the place where the body of their guide was laid to rest, the Benedictine nuns of San Donato moved to the Monastery of San Giacomo and remained there until 1897.

In the early 20th century the church passed to the Angeline Franciscan sisters, who still reside there today.
The Romanesque building has a portico in front, made up of short columns and capitals with plant and animal decorations, inside which is the entrance door.
The interior consists of a single nave with cross vaults, a transept, an apse illuminated by a single-light window, and two small chapels at the sides of the main altar. The stone walls preserve traces of frescoes from the 14th and 15th centuries: the image of Saint Catherine of Alexandria, dressed in red dress and with the breaking wheel of her martyrdom, attributed to the Master of the Standard of Saint Leonard, and the Enthroned Madonna and Child, can still be seen along the nave.

In the sacristy there is a fresco of the Madonna and Child between Saints Francis, Roch, Benedict, Rufinus, Clare and Sebastian, with an inscription on the throne giving the date (1536) and the name of the person who commissioned the work: Sister Giovannina di Giovanni of Perugia.