Word: assisi
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Franciscan order.* In the refectory, brown-robed friars reminded each other last week that years ago-when Princess Maria, little sister of Princess Giovanna, was desperately ill, Giovanna had come to Assisi to make her novena, had sworn that if Maria recovered she, Giovanna, would be married at the tomb of St. Francis under the walls made glorious by Giotto di Bondone (1267-1337), greatest of "primitive" mural painters...
Because it was utterly impossible for little Assisi (population 5,353) to house the wedding party, the Italian royal family and their most potent guests prepared to sleep on a railway siding down in the valley, occupying three special trains: i) the Blue Train which brought Marie Jose of Belgium to Rome for her wedding to Italian Crown Prince Umberto; 2) the Maroon Train, generally used by the Italian Royal Family; 3) a more gaudy, less comfortable relic known as the "Old Train" assigned for the wedding to Tsar Boris, his father Ferdinand, brother Cyril, sister Eudoxia...
Because one church was not enough to honor the meekest of medieval men, the gothic builders of Assisi built two churches to St. Francis, one on top of the other. Princess Giovanna decreed last week that her marriage should take place not in the larger, airier upper church, but in the lower, holier one beneath, whose high altar covers the saint's tomb...
...wedding procession was to form inside the upper church, march out the west door and up a grassy hill, then round the corner down through the colonnaded, cobblestoned pilgrim's courtyard to the portal of the lower church. Two hundred young girls of Assisi (practically every available one) were named last week "attendants of the Princess," received white satin dresses donated by her. Soldiers, Fascist militia, torch bearers were told off to line...
Prime Minister Benito Mussolini hastily canceled an engagement to speak in Rome on Oct. 25, promised to be in Assisi on the day set by Princess Giovanna. For Il Duce, obedient to Royalty though he may have seemed last week, the marriage is a great personal triumph. He has now lined up Bulgaria with Albania and Hungary in the "iron ring" of pro-Italian nations he is slowly forging around Italy's No. 1 Balkan enemy, Yugoslavia...