2 Quakes Kill 10, Damage Artworks in Italy

The Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi, one of the most popular shrines in Christendom, draws millions of tourists each year to pray at the tomb of the saint and admire Gothic frescoes painted in his honor.

But the 20 visitors inside the medieval church at midday Friday came not to worship but to inspect the damage from a 5.5-magnitude earthquake that had rocked this walled Umbrian hill town during the night. They couldn’t have chosen a worse time.

At 11:42 a.m., a second and slightly stronger quake sent two massive chunks of the basilica’s vaulted ceiling crashing down. In a tragedy for life and art, four people were crushed to death under the rubble of a priceless 13th century fresco attributed to Giotto di Bondone.

The victims, two Franciscan friars and two government art restorers, were among 10 people reported killed when the two quakes rumbled across mountainous central Italy. Civil defense officials said at least a dozen others were injured and 2,000 were forced from damaged homes into tent shelters.

Giuseppe Basile, an expert from the government’s Central Institute of Restoration, said Italy’s cultural heritage suffered “incalculable and irreplaceable” damage, one of its biggest single losses since World War II.

The giant hillside basilica, divided into upper and lower chapels, was built starting in 1228, the day after St. Francis was canonized, and its decoration attracted the leading artists of the day. Its best-known work is the cycle of 28 frescoes depicting the saint’s life on the walls of the upper chapel.

Art specialists said the cycle appears intact, with two of the frescoes having sustained jagged cracks.

But another fresco also attributed to Giotto fell with the ceiling near the upper chapel’s main entrance. It is titled “The Doctors” and depicts four Roman Catholic philosophers.

The other chunk of ceiling crashed near the same chapel’s main altar, destroying “The Acts of the Apostles,” a 13th century masterpiece by Giovanni Cimabue, Giotto’s mentor at the dawn of the Italian Renaissance.

“This is all that is left of the Cimabue fresco,” said Costantino Centroni, the superintendent of fine arts for the region of Umbria, as he held a pile of dust and crumbling plaster in his hands.

Behind him, bulldozers carted out rubble, adding to a 50-foot-long pile on the lawn outside the basilica. Art specialists, breathing through masks to keep out dust, sifted through the pile for painted chunks of masonry--the first of thousands of pieces that restorers will labor to fit together, however incomplete the puzzle.

Plinio Lepri, an Associated Press photographer, was inside the basilica when the second quake struck with a force of 5.7.

“First, there was a slight shock,” he said. “Then, about 15 minutes later, came the big jolt,” filling the chapel with a roar and blinding dust.

The Rev. Nicola Giandomenico, a Franciscan priest who was also inside, defended the ill-fated inspection tour, saying that the basilica had held up well in the first quake at 2:33 a.m. and appeared safe. The tour was led by Assisi’s mayor.

The dead friars, who were escorting the restorers ahead of the rest of the group, were a 48-year-old Italian in charge of the seminary and a 25-year-old Polish student who had just begun studying for the priesthood.

Two elderly couples from the mountain villages Collecurti and Cesi were among the six reported dead from the first quake, buried in the rubble of their homes.

Both quakes were centered near Foligno, 15 miles from Assisi in the Apennine mountains. They were felt from the Italian Alps to Rome, where buildings swayed and a wrought-iron lamp crashed in the Senate.

Medieval churches were reported damaged in Foligno, Bevagna, Urbino, Orvieto and Tolentino. The bell tower of Nocera Umbra’s cathedral collapsed.

The Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli on the plain below Assisi, which was built over St. Francis’ original hermit’s hut, was damaged, but his much-visited tomb in the main basilica’s lower chapel was not.

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The Damage List

Some of the damage to Italy’s historical monuments from Friday’s earthquake:

* Part of the vaulted ceilings of the 13th century Basilica of St. Francis in Assisi collapsed. Walls inside the upper church and at least two frescoes by Giotto and one by Cimabue were damaged.

* Also in Assisi, damage reported to the 12th century Cathedral of San Rufino, dedicated to a missionary martyr, and to the red and white Gothic church of Santa Chiara, built in 1257-65.

* In Urbino, cracks opened up in the outside facade and the inside walls of the Duomo, built in 1477.

* In Nocera Umbra the bell tower of the cathedral, built in the Middle Ages, collapsed, as well as several other buildings in the historic center.

* Major damage reported to the 13th century cathedral in Bevagna and to the tower of the Romanesque Duomo in Foligno.

Associated Press