Free On the Road with Francis of Assisi by Linda Bird Francke Page B

life. Francis had befriended one of the Spadalonga sons, thought to be Federico, but nobody knows where or why. There is conjecture that they were imprisoned together in Perugia, that Federico was the unidentified friend who had accompanied Francis on his secret lamentations in the cave near Assisi, that Francis and young Spadalonga had met in a merchants’ guild.
    In any event, Federico’s act of charity was to give Francis a tunic and cloak to wear, replacing the inadequate rags that had obviously suffered on his perilous trip from Assisi. Presumably the family also gave him food and shelter, not only on that visit but on so many subsequent visits that the thirteenth-century church of San Francesco della Pace, the church we are waiting to enter, incorporated the Spadalongas’ home and warehouse, then outside the walls of Gubbio. The room Francis slept in is preserved just off the church’s sacristy in what is called the Chapel of Peace.
    The massive church, when it opens in the late afternoon, tells the story of the cloak giving over and over—in a stained glass window, in a bronze relief, in the inscription on a stone wall leading to the Chapel of Peace:
“Qui presso il fondaco degli Spadalonga Francesco d’Assisi, evangelista della pace, e del bene trove asilo e conforto al principio della sua conversione.—1206
.
”
A rounded arch, presumably representing the doorway to the Spadalonga house, frames the entrance to the simple chapel, along with an old bell and rope that offers an irresistible invitation to pull.
    For all the pride Gubbio takes in the legend of the Spadalongas’ charity, the city is more popularly known for another legend—Francis and the wolf. Indeed, the miracle of Francis and the wolf, presumably a different wolf from the one terrorizing farmers near the Abbazia di Vallingegno, almost defines Gubbio. There is a huge bronze sculpture of Francis with the wolf in the garden just outside the church and another near the Porta Romana gate into the city. The Rough Guide lists San Francesco e il Lupo (wolf) and the Taverna del Lupo as two of the city’s most popular restaurants. The saint and the wolf appear on souvenir ceramic tiles and mugs and wall hangings in shops all over Gubbio. Everyone loves the miracle of Francis and the wolf.
    The Gubbio legend began when a wolf, described on one of the sculptures as
“un grandissimo lupo, terribile et feroce,”
was terrorizing Gubbians by killing livestock and farmers alike. The good people were scared to go outside the city walls until Francis arrived on a visit—and decided to confront the wolf himself. The people begged him not to, but off he went toward the forest and soon encountered the
grandissimo lupo
slouching toward him, teeth bared. And the miracle begins.
    Francis stopped the wolf in midstride, according to
Little Flowers of St. Francis,
by making the sign of the cross. He then ordered “Brother Wolf” to come to him, which the wolf summarily did and meekly “lay down at the Saint’s feet as though it had become a lamb.” After scolding the wolf for committing “horrible crimes,” Francis proceeded to negotiate peace with the beast. Would he promise to stop his killing spree if the people of Gubbio promised to give him food every day? The wolf nodded his head, then placed his paw in Francis’s hand to cement the pledge. Francis and the wolf, now walking beside him “like a very gentle lamb,” returned to the marketplace, where a huge crowd had gathered.
    After delivering a sermon from a rock—now enshrined in the church of San Francesco—Francis exacted a promise from the people of Gubbio to “feed the wolf regularly.” They evidently did. “It went from door to door for food. It hurt no one and no one hurt it,” recounts the
Little Flowers of St. Francis.
The Gubbians were even sorry when the wolf died two years later and erected a shrine over its burial site on the Via Globo. In a startling validation of the legend, an