Monumental Complex of San Francesco al Prato

The church of San Francesco al Prato – built by the Ordine dei Frati Minori between 1251 and 1253 inside an architectural complex of huge dimensions that, in the XIV Century, was also site of a Studium generale – has been in time enriched by several and extraordinary art masterpieces, among which the Crocefisso ligneo  (Wooden Cross  - 1272) presently in exhibition at the Galleria Nazionale dell’Umbria, two works by Raffaello – the Deposition known as “Baglioni”, brought in Rome (1608) to enrich the collection of Scipione Borghese, and the Incoronazione della Vergine (The crowning of the Virgin) – beside the Resurrezione (Resurrection) by Perugino, these last confiscated from the French in 1797 and given back to the Pope in 1815.

The church, with the contiguous convent and the close oratorio of San Bernardino, has always been a pole of the utmost attraction, sign of the influence of the Franciscan settlement, and has become the “tempio di tutte le glorie cittadine” (temple of all city glories - Ettore Ricci, 1927) and a pantheon of Perugia, where the major patrician families had their tombs. Deeply damaged because of geological instability, the church has been restored in 1926 and later on during the ‘70s of last century, when the façade was rebuilt after the demolition of the buildings that, during the XVII Century, had been built against it. During the second half of the ‘90s it was again strongly restored and requalified, transforming it in an auditorium, and for this reason it was object of a “protocollo di intesa” (memorandum of understanding) signed in 1995 between the Soprintendenza of Umbria and Perugia Municipality.

The cappella degli Oddi (Oddi Chapel), close to the left transept, is composed by two vaulted rooms; the biggest one, known as the cappella del Gonfalone (Gonfalone chapel), has still a floor in cotto and tombstones sculptured in relief. This fascinating spaces, after a sharp and accurate documentary reconstruction, are now back to ancient splendour thanks to the reconstruction of the altar of the Gonfalone chapel, over which the original Gonfalone della Madonna della Peste (Gonfalone of the Madonna of the Plague) by Benedetto Bonfigli (1464) has been replaced, coming from the adjacent Oratorio di san Bernardino, and the placement of the remains and manufacts possibly form the burials by Bartolo di Sassoferrato of Braccio Fortebraccio da Montone and of exponents of the Corgna family. The visiti is moreover enriched by an interesting video projection reconstructing the presence inside the church of manufacts and artworks of high prestige, among which the beforementioned Incoronazione della Vergine  commissioned to Raffaello (1502 – 1504) by Leandra Baglioni degli Oddi, today at the Pinacoteca Vaticana.