Upper Basilica of San Francesco d'Assisi, Gothic church in Assisi, Italy.

The Upper Basilica of San Francesco is the upper of two stacked churches in Assisi, reached from the upper esplanade. Its single nave has four bays of cross vaults on clustered pillars, a narrow gallery running around the walls, and a polygonal apse; tall Gothic windows and the facade rose window light the painted interior. The facade is tripartite with a triangular gable, a twin portal and a double rose window with Cosmatesque inlay, and the loggia delle Benedizioni, designed by Valentino Martelli from 1607, extends to its left.

Pope Gregory IX ordered the construction of this church in 1228, two years after the canonization of Francis, to provide a worthy burial site for the new saint. The fresco decorations were added in the following decades when Italian painters were commissioned to apply biblical stories and episodes from the saint's life onto the walls.

The first frescoes in the church were made by Cimabue and his workshop, probably between 1288 and 1292, in the presbytery, transept and apse; the central bay of the vault shows the Four Evangelists, while the other bays have a plain starry sky. The white lead used in the fresco technique has darkened many scenes, so light tones now read as dark. The cusps of the fifteenth-century choir cover about a third of the lower scenes in the transept and apse.

The entrance to the church is on the western facade and leads directly into the main hall, where natural light enters through the tall windows. Visitors should expect to spend several minutes walking the full length of the frescoes along the side walls.

The upper church has over 2000 square meters (21500 square feet) of painted wall surface showing biblical stories and the life of Saint Francis side by side. Some frescoes were worked on by multiple hands as different masters contributed to the same wall sections at different times.