Church of Santo Stefano

The Church of Santo Stefano is located in a rather silent, enchanting part of Assisi, far from the streets crowded with pilgrims, souvenir shops and the town’s main tourist attractions: it stands in its simplicity, among characteristic narrow streets, in a garden from which there is a beautiful view of the valley.
According to tradition, the bells of the bell tower rang spontaneously on the day when Saint Francis died (October 3, 1226).

The building, made from the white stone of Mt. Subasio, is an example of Umbrian Romanesque architecture and was first documented in 1166.
The gabled façade has a pointed arch over the door and in the upper part, in perfect symmetry, a single-light window flanked by a niche which was probably once decorated with a fresco.

The interior has a single nave, crossed by pointed arches that support a wooden beam ceiling. The main altar is in the chancel, which is covered by a barrel vault and behind which there is a semicircular apse decorated externally by a series of blind arches and pilaster strips.
Along the left wall there are traces of two paintings: a 14th-century work of the Madonna and Child between Saint Francis and Saint Stephen that also portrays those who commissioned it, partly repainted in the 17th century, and next to it, the fragment of a Crucifixion.