Note 53 — Front matter (continued 2)

The large modern church of Rivo-Torto, on the road from Sta. Maria degli Angeli to Spello, built to enclose the huts that St. Francis and his companions are supposed to have lived in while tending the lepers, has been proved without doubt by M. Paul Sabatier to have no connection whatever with the Saint. In these few pages we have followed the information given in a pamphlet which is to be found in the Italian translation of his Vie de S. François d'Assise. It is impossible here to enter into all the arguments relating to this disputed point, but I think the authority of the best, and by far the most vivid of the biographers of St. Francis can be trusted without further comment, and that we may safely believe the hut of St. Francis, known as Rivo-Torto, lay close to the present chapels of San Rufino d'Arce and Sta. Maria Maddalena. See Appendix for information as to their exact position in the plain and the nearest road to them. Disertazione sul primo luogo abitato dai Frati Minori su Rivo-Torto e nell'Ospedale dei Lebbrosi di Assisi. di Paul Sabatier (Roma, Ermanno Loescher and Co., 1896).