More than 50 pavement artists to spend three days chalking a collective masterpiece and 40 individual works in the square before the Basilica of San Francesco.
Assisi is set to become an open-air gallery this week as more than 50 of the world’s finest pavement artists gather to create a monumental tribute to St Francis, in one of the centrepiece events marking 800 years since the saint’s death.
From 28 to 30 August, the Madonnari — street artists who specialise in religious imagery drawn in coloured chalk, a tradition dating back to the sixteenth century — will work day and night on the lower square in front of the Basilica of San Francesco.
A partnership between Assisi and Curtatone
The event, titled Francesco nell’arte dei Madonnari, is the result of an agreement between Assisi and Curtatone, the northern Italian town near Mantua renowned for its centuries-old Madonnari competition at the Fiera delle Grazie. The artists taking part were selected earlier this month at Curtatone’s 52nd national gathering.
Twelve of them will collaborate on a single large-scale piece measuring around 50 square metres, designed specially for the occasion by the American artist Kurt Wenner, a pioneer of three-dimensional street art who is serving as the event’s artistic director.
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The Vision of St Francis
Titled La visione di San Francesco, Wenner’s design is conceived as a monumental floor work tracing the Franciscan legacy as a living journey, weaving together sacred history, civic memory and the Umbrian landscape.
The piece depicts Popes John Paul II, Francis and Leo XIV, St Clare of Assisi, Jacopa de’ Settesoli, companions of St Francis, St Carlo Acutis, and the wolf and other animals associated with the saint’s Canticle of the Creatures. It closes with the Franciscan greeting Pax et Bonum, extending a blessing of peace to all who view it.
Forty individual works alongside the centrepiece
Alongside the collective work, the remaining artists will produce 40 individual pieces across more than 220 square metres, each on a plot of roughly five square metres, all inspired by Franciscan themes, the city of Assisi and celebrated figures of Italian art.
Rather than being drawn straight onto the paving stones, both the collective piece and the individual works will be created on sheets of eco-sustainable linoleum — allowing them to be preserved and exhibited afterwards rather than fading away, as pavement art traditionally does.
When to see the street art
The artists arrive in Assisi on the morning of 28 August and will work continuously to complete the pieces by the morning of 30 August. Visitors will be able to move freely around the square to watch the works take shape.
A closing ceremony is scheduled for 30 August at 11:30, when friars from the Sacro Convento will bless the artists and their creations. The finished works will remain on public display until 1 September.
Assisi mayor Valter Stoppini described the initiative as “unique and extraordinary,” saying it would bring together, for the first time in the city, some of the world’s leading exponents of ephemeral figurative art.
The project has been organised by the Comune di Assisi in collaboration with the Sacro Convento, with the support of the national committee for the 800th anniversary of St Francis’s death, along with regional tourism bodies.
